


(no) stories for boys in love with the hero

by Fireborn



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Riku is a sad and lonely boy and he is not okay, aka what I want for KHMoM and DDD2, assumptions and miscommunication, because oh boy does this kid need a fix-it, but he will be I promise, hinted unrequited past sokai (Kairi's side), riku-centric, talking things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27103864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fireborn/pseuds/Fireborn
Summary: Over the past year, with Sora gone, Riku has convinced himself it can't behimwho'll save Sora this time, not when Kairi went to sleep to find him. She has the better chance; after all, there are no stories for boys like him, who fall in love with the hero.Still, if Fairy Godmother believes Riku's dreams are the key, he'll try his very best to summon back the strength to protect what matters.
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 119
Kudos: 271





	1. stitch by stitch I tear apart

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhhhhh Riku has so many feelings... He's such a sad and lonely boy... I really wanted to write a fic about how he went from this confident "Sora needs me" boy, so sure in his love for Sora, to the sad, dejected boy he was at the end of Re:mind... So this is that fic! 
> 
> Alternative title: "A bunch of fan theories and headcanons rolled into one, the fic", or just "Fireborn's dream for the plot of KHMoM and DDD2". I hope you enjoy!!!
> 
> Thanks go to Mousi and Paion, for editing this fic for me, and to Ven, for providing me patiently with answers to all my questions about canon lore. The concept of "there are no stories for boys who fall in love with the hero" was not my own, but belongs to a friend. Thank you for letting me use it!! <3333
> 
> I made a sad Riku playlist to listen to while I wrote this fic. If you'd like to listen to it, you can [find it here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2kdZXpUvsBJKtPAk69wa69?si=wtY7wTqFQoWnCPhcc49tLQ)!

_Stitch by stitch I tear apart_  
_If brokenness is a form of art_  
_I must be a poster child prodigy_  
Neptune - Sleeping At Last

“I’m… I’m gonna need some air,” Riku mumbled. With wide eyes and his heart pounding uncomfortably against the hollow of his throat, he staggered backwards, crashing awkwardly into the chair behind him. A flash of pain shot through the back of his knees, and he only managed to keep both himself and the chair from falling over through years of honing his reflexes in battle.

He felt every pair of eyes in the room on him as he turned around and walked—stumbled—to the front door. Fairy Godmother’s words had left Cid, Yuffie, Leon, and Aerith as flabbergasted and affected as Riku. Through the sound of the blood rushing in his ears, he heard Aerith’s mumbles, and Yuffie’s “Oh my _god_ , I can’t believe it. What was the dream? Tell me!”

Cid talked over her, demanding again, “So what happens _next_?”

A flash later Riku was through the door, and he sucked in a breath that felt long overdue. The autumn air in Radiant Garden was crisp and burned in his lungs, but he was grateful for the physical sensation, a distraction from the whirlpool of emotions in his chest. At the same time, the sensation in the air was a painful reminder of it being autumn _again_ , 378 days since the day Sora disappeared and Kairi returned.

Riku made his way over to the stone wall next to the flower patches in the square and sank down upon it. His feet dangled over the edge, his toes barely touching the grass. Normally, he would have kicked his legs back and forth, but all the energy had left his body, like air being punched out after a blow to the stomach. He was scrambling to make sense of Fairy Godmother’s words, but his thoughts were a messy whirlwind, like an autumn storm wreaking havoc in his mind. He felt shaky and lost in the middle of it, his hands weak and trembling against his thighs until he curled them into fists.

His dreams… His _dream_ , it had been real? That particular dream was always the same. The sensation of being watched, the bone-deep knowledge that Sora was _there_ , if only Riku tried hard enough, searched long enough… The darkness and the eerie silence in a city bigger than Riku had ever seen. That had all _meant_ something? And now Fairy Godmother was talking about _keys_? Riku’s dream being the key… The key to _what_ , to Sora? What more did she know?

He regretted leaving Merlin’s house now. It wasn’t like him anymore to run from uncomfortable feelings, and especially not when it came to any clues about Sora. And it definitely wasn’t befitting a Keyblade Master to run away whenever his thoughts threatened to overwhelm him. But it had been…such a long year, and every day, Riku felt his strength waning more. He stared unseeingly at the withering purple flowers in between the grass blades, and Sora’s silhouette swam before his eyes. Smiling, reaching out for him.

Riku didn’t know whether to smile back or to give in and let his heart crack a little more, a little deeper.

Lost in thought, he didn’t hear the quiet footsteps on the grass, and he started when the hem of blue robes—not the same blue as Sora’s eyes, just a shade lighter, a little more purple—came into view.

“Fairy Godmother…” He lifted his head.

She smiled at him, patient and kind, and Riku swallowed around the burning tightness in his throat. He hadn’t cried a single day in these 378 days, and he wasn’t going to start today.

_Come on, Sora. Keep it together._

_Pull it together, Sora! We haven’t lost them. They still have their hearts._

He bowed his head again as he forced his eyes shut so hard he saw white shooting stars. 

The fallen leaves rustled against the cobblestones of the square as a gust of wind swept behind them. 

He couldn’t get Sora’s face out of his mind.

“Riku, dear. Is there somewhere we can go to talk? Your home, maybe?”

Riku flinched. His _home_? He slept in Radiant Garden Castle, in the Land of Departure, even on the Destiny Islands sometimes. But none of the beds offered to him anywhere felt like home anymore, not without—

“Or we can go to my house if you’d prefer?” Fairy Godmother asked gently. 

Riku’s eyes widened in surprise, and he found himself nodding. “Yeah… Yeah, okay.”

The next thing he knew, Fairy Godmother was holding a wand and light blue sparkles danced all around them. Riku closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were standing in what looked to be the spacious kitchen of a wooden cottage.

“Tea?” Fairy Godmother asked kindly.

“Uhm…” Riku said, his mouth open as he took in the room—pots hanging on brackets on the wall, a cabinet with glass doors that was filled with porcelain teacups of every shape and size. An oaken table with beautifully carved legs. Small windows with wooden frames and frilly red curtains.

It looked very cosy, and somehow Riku felt a weight lift off his shoulders that he’d been carrying around for so long that he’d forgotten what they felt like without.

“Oh, of course,” Fairy Godmother answered for him. “Tea makes everything better. Sit, please!”

Riku shuffled towards the table and sat down as Fairy Godmother put an old-fashioned silver-coloured kettle on the stove. She hummed a little as she rummaged through the cupboards for tea leaves, and Riku watched her absentmindedly as she set about making two cups of tea with strainers and a teaspoon of leaves each. It was soothing to watch her work so methodically, and when she placed his cup before him on a wicker coaster, he was startled to realise he hadn’t thought about Sora for almost ten minutes.

He wasn’t sure whether to feel guilty or relieved.

“Here you go, dear. Do you want milk or sugar?”

Riku shook his head and reached for the cup so he’d have something to do with his hands. The steam rose upwards and warmed his cheeks.

As Fairy Godmother sat down across from him, she gave him a bright, genuine smile. It had been a while since anyone had smiled at him like that; most smiles directed towards Riku these days were laced with either worry or pity.

“What a day, huh?” Fairy Godmother sighed as she smiled. “I’m sorry to spring all of this on you without any warning, dear. It all came rather suddenly to me, too. Master Yen Sid didn’t want to tell you before we were sure we had found something. Before I left the Tower, we contacted Ienzo, Even, and Ansem the Wise at Radiant Garden Castle, so they know now what we have in mind for you; they will prepare everything for tomorrow. We thought it would be best if you went to sleep in the laboratory, so the scientists can monitor your vital signs as you sleep. The same way they’re doing for Kairi.”

“Yeah…” Riku suppressed a pang of _something_ he wasn’t willing to dissect right now at the mention of Kairi. Privately, he’d always believed Kairi had the better chance of finding Sora, and he wasn’t proud of the way that made him feel. It shouldn’t matter who found Sora. As long as Riku got to see him again… 

“Tell me about Sora.” Fairy Godmother said softly, bringing Riku back from his rapidly twisting thoughts.

Riku focused on her face and met her eyes. They were kind. “What do you need to know?”

She shook her head gently. “Not for me. I just thought you might want to talk about him? I met him a few times, you know.”

“You did?” Riku wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Sora had touched so many lives, and Riku was aware he didn’t even know about half of them.

“He was very young then. He’d just met Donald and Goofy, and he was looking for you and Kairi. But even though he was young and rash, there was already so much light and determination inside of him.”

“Yeah,” Riku sighed wistfully. “That sounds like Sora, alright. He’s always been like that. Whenever he sets his mind to something, he won’t rest until it’s done. He would even forego his naps on the beach when that happened. I remember one day, he told me he was going to climb to the top of the paopu tree. I told him he couldn’t, he was too little. But he tried and tried again, for hours and hours. He fell off so many times. In the end, covered in cuts and bruises, he made it to the top. I’d never seen him smile so proudly.”

Riku twisted the teacup left and right on the coaster, twisting his forefinger through the handle.

“He’s a good boy.” Fairy Godmother’s voice was light, soft like clouds. “And you care for him very much.”

Riku looked down at his tea, the dark liquid swirling faintly. _Too much_ , he thought. So much it hurt and it twisted inside of his chest, more painful than any battle wound he’d ever received. More painful than his wrist or his hip: the knowledge that he cared for Sora more than Sora would ever care for him. Or at least, differently. That was the most painful scar of all. Riku had never minded this pain, but sometimes he wished he could just…tune it out, if only for a second.

As soon as he thought that, he felt guilty.

“I know it’s those feelings that will eventually bring him back to you,” she continued in her melodious voice. “Master Yen Sid told me how hard you’ve been working, looking for him. Coordinating everything up at the Land of Departure, making sure everyone checks in regularly, that they’re taking breaks.”

Riku took a sip of his barely cooled tea, averting his eyes as it burned his tongue. This was the part where she’d tell him to sleep more, to rest more, that he was doing as much as he could. All the things everyone kept telling him. The worst was when they said that Sora wouldn’t want him to run himself into the ground like this.

But the next words out of her mouth were, “I’m so proud of you, Riku,” and Riku looked up in surprise.

“Huh?” The word slipped out before he realised he was being rude. “I’m sorry, I mean—”

“You’ve even been looking for him in your dreams. That must be a big strain, to not even get to rest when you sleep. Your heart really wants to find him.”

_My heart wants too many things. Doesn’t mean I’ll get them._

“And I know you will find him. I’m sorry Master Yen Sid and Merlin and I took so long to realise that dreams were the key. _Your_ dream, Riku.”

Riku shook his head. “I still find it hard to believe. I dream about Sora so much.” 

Heat rose into his cheeks, and he looked up at the dried flowers hanging from the ceiling. _That_ dream was always the same, but there were many other dreams. Some good, fighting side by side with Sora again, or relaxing together on the beach. Others were nightmares where Riku was reliving their fights or Sora told Riku he didn’t need him anymore. 

He sighed. “Why is this one so different?”

“He’s calling for you.”

_No, it can’t be me. Kairi’s the one asleep. Kairi’s the one Sora went to save. Kairi is the Princess of Heart, the light, the heroine. I’m just… I’m just his friend. I’m like a brother to him._

But his feelings for Sora weren’t that of a friend or a brother, something he had known for years. Riku had accepted that ever since he and Sora had stood on opposite sides of the door to the Realm of Darkness and he had been overcome by guilt and shame and regret. His feelings for Sora were so, so much more. He’d spent so long trying to work these feelings down to brother, friend, but it was no use. 

In the end, he had learned to embrace them, even though they hurt, cut into his entire being like shards of glass.

He used to not mind the pain because at some point, his feelings for Sora had started to give him more strength than pain. But the longer he was without Sora, the more his thoughts spiralled, and the more doubt overtook the strength he used to feel. How could he protect the one person who mattered to him most, if that person was nowhere to be found?

Worse still, what if it wasn’t his destiny to find Sora anyway?

“What do you remember of the dream?” Fairy Godmother asked.

Riku’s gaze remained on the dried flowers, dark red and sand-faint yellow. In his mind, he replayed the entire dream from start to waking up. He started to recount it in a low, rough voice. The beginning where he rose from the wet pavement, the tall, overwhelming buildings around him. How he walked around, following the faint tug in his chest, but never found anything. The feeling of being _watched_. Not Sora, someone else: a mysterious figure somewhere on one of those rooftops.

When Riku stopped talking, his throat was raw and tight; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken so many words in one go. The tea had gone lukewarm, and he drank the remainder to soothe the ache.

“I’ve seen flashes of it too,” Fairy Godmother said when it was clear Riku was done with his story.

Riku finally met her eyes again, but there was nothing there like the painful sympathy he was dreading. She looked thoughtful. “One of my magical powers is oneiromancy.”

At Riku’s blank stare, she let out a little laugh.

“It means I can explain dreams. Sometimes I can see the dreams of others if they’re powerful enough.” Fairy Godmother took another sip of her tea. “Your dreams, my dear, are very powerful indeed.”

“But why?” Riku asked before he could stop himself. “There’s nothing special about me. It’s _Kairi_ who went to sleep so they could search _her_ dreams because she’s a Princess of Heart. And she and Sora… They have a special connection. He went to save her, and they’ve been to the Final World together, and I… I’m just…”

“Oh, Riku, dear. She and Sora may have a connection. But you… You do _too_.”

Riku bit his lip. 

“Master Yen Sid tells me you became Sora’s _Dream Eater_. That’s a connection that cannot be severed by time or space. Your connection to Sora is more powerful than anyone else’s. And you’ve been in his dreams before to save him.”

Something squeezed inside Riku’s chest, and he brought a hand to curl his fingers into the fabric of his t-shirt. His eyes burned. What _good_ was his connection when it had been over a year, and Riku hadn’t been able to do _anything_. All that strength he once felt gone, because now _Kairi_ was the one to save Sora, _Kairi_ was the one destined to be by Sora’s side, and Riku… Where did that leave him?

Riku didn’t know what it was that made him bare more of his heart. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t sat down for a conversation like this with anyone in a very long time. Maybe there was something special in Fairy Godmother’s tea. But he hung his head and whispered, “I don’t know how to save him this time…” 

“You will see, Riku. Not everything is as it seems.”

“But Kairi… She’s a Princess of Heart. If she’s looking for him—” He couldn’t voice the rest of his thoughts.

Riku lifted his eyes to see Fairy Godmother’s smile, and the squeezing feeling behind his ribcage lessened a little.

“Kairi is doing what she thinks is best,” Fairy Godmother said gently. “But believe me, Riku. Even the story of a Princess of Heart is not set in stone. Her past and her future are different from what you may think.”

“What… What do you mean?”

“She wasn’t in the dream you had. But _you_ were. And so was Sora.”

“Fairy Godmother,” Riku shook his head, trying to swallow against the way his throat closed up. “I saved him before when he needed me. But ever since Kairi… I don’t know what changed. But this time I’m not sure I can. I used to…” 

_I used to believe in myself, in the strength I’d found, to protect what matters. Sora…_

“I know you know that the world isn’t as black and white as it seems. You’ve walked a path that no one has had the courage to walk before. It’s not over, Riku. That road will lead you to many more places. I told you I knew what happened next in the dream.”

Riku’s fingers flexed against empty air as he fought against the urge to ball his hands into fists on the table. Instead, he took a deep breath. “What happens next in my dream?”

“That wasn’t your dream you’ve been in. It was Sora’s. He’s beyond my reach, so I couldn’t see his dreams before. But he’s calling for you, and that call is so powerful he’s drawing you into his dream from wherever he is. What happens next is that you’ll find him. Your determination, your devotion, your strength is unrivalled, if only you would let yourself believe in it.”

“I’ll find him?” His voice was small, barely above a whisper. 

“Divination is a fickle power. We cannot see the future for sure. You’ll have to work for it. You’ll have to fight for it.”

“I can do that,” Riku said, surprising himself with the sudden burst of determination.

“I know you can. I believe in you.”

“And…” Riku felt his pulse racing in his ears as the sudden flood of adrenaline ebbed away. “I made a promise. Long ago. I don’t think Sora even remembers. But I promised to protect him, no matter what happened.”

The sharp edges of the feelings in his chest hurt as they stirred. One of his worst recurring thoughts rose inside of him, one he always tried to push down as quickly as it came. But thoughts were fickle things, and Riku had no control over them. If it wasn’t Kairi destined to save Sora… Would Riku save him just to see him and Kairi live their happy ever after? Would he still choose to do it? 

_Yes. The answer is yes. I will always save him because I promised him… No, because I_ love _him, and that will have to be enough_.

“Well, then,” Fairy Godmother said with a wink. “Hold onto that promise, Riku. Remember that. It means something very special that Sora is calling for _you_.”

“I’ll try…” Riku said, his shoulders relaxed just a little.

“Wait here for a second,” Fairy Godmother said as she pushed her chair back. “I have something for you.”

She went into the adjourning room which must have been the living room of her little cottage. Riku heard the sound of a drawer opening and closing, and a few moments later she was back. 

“Hold out your hand.”

Riku did, and he gasped as she placed an opaque cerulean stone in his palm. “What’s this?”

“During the months I got to know Sora, he gathered so-called Summon Gems for me. They contained the hearts of individuals who had not been destroyed by the darkness. He collected these Gems in all worlds and I would awaken them for him. He thought this stone would be one of them, but it was just a regular beautiful stone. There was no heart inside it. Still, he wanted me to keep it, as a thank you for helping him. But I think you should have it instead.”

Riku’s words stuck in his throat, swallowed by the wave of overwhelming emotion as he stared at the stone in his hand. He wasn’t even able to thank her.

“It’s for good luck. I think you and Sora need it more than I do. More tea?”

Riku nodded wordlessly, and he wrapped his fingers around the stone, warming it in his hand.

The silence that settled between them as Fairy Godmother went to the stove to make more tea was comfortable, and when she returned with tea and cookies, the conversation shifted to more mundane things. Her garden, the spells she was working on. She asked Riku about his own magic, and Riku found himself talking about his Grand Magic skills with more joy than he’d felt in a long time. The stone was a heavy, comforting presence in his hand.

He’d forgotten what it felt like to be _hopeful_ , to be strong. It was so hard to be strong.

When finally the sun had set outside, Fairy Godmother stood, and Riku followed her example, sliding Sora’s stone into his pocket.

“I will send you back to Radiant Garden so you can rest. Tomorrow, we’ll put you to sleep next to Kairi. You will have the dream again, and this time, you won’t wake up at the usual moment. The artificial sleep will give you the time you need to keep going.”

Riku nodded. Thinking of Kairi filled him with doubts once more, but now underneath his worries, there was a spark again, a longing he hadn’t felt in a long time. He was afraid to cling to it, for fear it would slip away as easily as it had come. But it was a welcome spark nonetheless.

Fairy Godmother opened her arms, and Riku’s eyes widened as he realised she was offering him a hug. She didn’t step forward, and her face was gentle, as if she knew Riku might not want it. Riku stood frozen for long moments, trying to figure out what to do. He never really liked touching people, and especially now, he shied away from it. But it had been so long since anyone touched him. Longer still since anyone hugged him.

(It was Sora. 456 days ago, the day of their Mark of Mastery.)

He stepped forward, and let her arms come around his shoulders. She smelled like flowers in late spring and her robes were soft against his cheek.

He didn’t cry, but only barely.

  
  
  
  


It was eleven at night back in Radiant Garden—they must have been talking for longer than Riku had realised, or he’d gotten confused about the inter-world time zones again—and Riku made his way through the castle hallways without anyone noticing him. His gummiphone was filled with messages which he checked as he walked; everyone had been informed about the plan Master Yen Sid had come up with. The messages were hopeful, encouraging, and despite himself, Riku smiled as he replied to them.

He hadn’t had dinner yet, but he found he wasn’t hungry. Between the stress of searching for Sora and the anxiety over keeping his feelings in check, he was rarely hungry anymore.

He undressed quickly and slipped into the small one-person bed in what had become his room in the castle. It was bare: a bed, a desk with a chair, and a narrow wardrobe. It was more than he needed.

But then, as soon as Riku turned off the small night-light above his bed, the now-familiar routine of lying awake and brooding for hours started. He _wanted_ to believe Fairy Godmother’s words, but a year of the same thought patterns over and over was not undone in one afternoon, and the thoughts came unbidden. 

Over the past year, all the confidence he’d once built had crumbled brick by brick. He remembered with a flash of irony how he’d told Sora to keep it together, to get back up again, when Riku himself wasn’t able to do the same thing now. Optimism had turned to hopelessness with every lead that came up short. Strength had turned to feelings of worthlessness every time Riku thought about Kairi searching for Sora in her dreams. And every day, he’d felt a little sadder, a little more lost, unsure of anything and everything, but most of all the part he had to play in all of this.

The worst thing was the anger he felt more and more as time went on, during his weakest moments. Anger with himself for not doing better. Anger with _Sora_ for leaving.

_I gave you_ everything, _and this is how you repay me?_

And then the anger turned to sadness and despair again. It had never been about repayment. Riku had done what he had done because there was nothing he wanted more than to see Sora happy. Even if that was with Kairi… And then his thoughts went back to the beginning, circles within circles.

He should never have let Sora go. Hadn’t he vowed to be by Sora’s side? Still, he’d known that when no one else believed in Sora, he had to. That was part of his _job_. Sora’s mind was made up, and Riku _had_ to believe in him because that’s what Sora needed.

But now Sora was gone, and part of Riku couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a terrible mistake that day in the Keyblade Graveyard. Where was the line between believing in Sora and protecting him? When Sora’s mind was made up, and he wanted to go and save Kairi, had there been anything else Riku could have done but nod and let him go?

_Kairi_ … 

Thoughts of Kairi and Sora together were the worst thoughts that always crept into his mind unbidden.

All the adventure stories Riku had read as a boy were about a boy and a girl, the hero and the princess. There was no place in stories like that for a gay best friend who fell in love with the hero as well. Unasked for, unrequited. No hero would ever return feelings like that for someone like _him_. There were no stories with a happy ending for a boy like him.

And even if the fact that Riku was a _boy_ wasn’t enough, there was another reason why the story would never end the way Riku so desperately wanted. Because at one point he had been the childhood friend, but then he’d become the story’s antagonist. And even though he’d worked so hard to overcome all of that and Sora had forgiven him—the guilt over that was fleeting, barely there anymore—he didn’t deserve the hero, the king of the story.

And yet… And yet… 

Once upon a time, not even that long ago, there had been a spark of hope that _maybe_ , if Riku worked hard enough, if he loved fiercely enough, Sora would return his feelings. There had been the hug after the Mark of Mastery, Sora throwing himself at Riku wholeheartedly, his unabashed joy at learning Riku had passed the test and was now a Keyblade Master. 

And Riku could still picture, clear as if it had happened yesterday, Sora falling from the skies to stand by his side in the Realm of Darkness. The way Sora smiled at him that day, fueling Riku’s fierce and endless love even further. The way they’d summoned their combined keyblade, as easy as ever, to defeat the Demon Tower.

That had been something Riku had once thought impossible as well, but Sora had done that. Maybe Sora would do other things Riku had previously thought impossible, like fall in love with him… What if it _meant_ something that Sora found his power of waking to save Riku when he needed Sora most? 

Then, all of that hope had shattered on the beach, the day before the final fight against Xehanort. Riku had told Kairi he wanted to be alone, but he hadn’t, of course. Not _really_. But the three of them didn’t feel like a trio anymore, for reasons that hurt too deeply for Riku to think about. And Sora had seemed excited at the prospect of catching up with Kairi.

That day, when he saw Sora and Kairi share a paopu fruit on the tree, was the beginning of all his feeble hopes getting smashed back into the ground. He’d thought, maybe, that the fact that Sora hadn’t even really mentioned Kairi anymore after the Mark of Mastery had meant something. When Sora called _him_ to talk about his day, or to complain when Donald was being grumpy. When Sora texted _him_ pictures of northern lights or toy stores or skyscrapers.

Riku had felt encouraged. _Hopeful_ , even. What if…

But then, piece by piece, that hope was torn apart. It had started with Sora and Kairi on the paopu tree. He’d been stupid, _naive_ , to believe Sora would ever choose someone like _him_. To believe even for a second that he could write his own story about a boy who fell in love with the hero. There were no such stories. He _knew_ that. And so, when Sora and Kairi had appeared back in the Graveyard, hand in hand, Riku had felt his heart break even further.

And then… 

_“My whole journey began the day I lost her.”_

Sora had said that, and the last of Riku’s hope had faded into the harsh winds chasing the sand across the Keyblade Graveyard.

_But what about_ me _!_ part of him wanted to scream. _What about me…_

Still, he had let Sora go. Because he wasn’t the jealous, possessive boy he’d been when he was fifteen. All he wanted was to see Sora happy, even if that wasn’t with him. It meant he could let Sora go. 

Even so, when he told everyone, “As long as they’re together, they’ll be all right,” the words had tasted like ash in his mouth, the smile fake and frozen on his face. He was surprised no one had seen.

Riku inhaled deeply and sighed. He turned around on his stomach, pressing his face into the pillow. None of this was helping. He’d had all of these thoughts a million times before, and each time, they weighed a little heavier on his mind. He let his thoughts drift to Fairy Godmother and her cottage. The cup of Earl Grey tea in his hands. The way she’d made him feel, for the first time in a very long time, that maybe he _did_ matter. Maybe his connection to Sora, his _promise_ to Sora, would be enough.

No matter what happened… Sora still needed a best friend…didn’t he? 

It was a long time before Riku finally fell asleep. He dreamt of Sora. Though it wasn’t _the_ dream. Sora was still there—of course he was. They stood on Sora’s heart station, facing each other, three feet apart.

There was a bruise on Sora’s cheek and a cut on his forehead. There were dark half-moons underneath his eyes, and even the spikes of his hair seemed to droop. Riku was frozen in place, so many feelings inside of him that he didn’t know where to begin unravelling the thread of them.

“Sora…” he said, but the rest of the words stuck in his throat as he suddenly noticed that Sora wasn’t alone. Standing by his side, holding his hand, was Kairi.

Sora reached out his other hand for Riku, but Riku’s limbs felt as if they’d turned to stone, and he was unable to reach back, no matter how much he forced his arm to rise. Sora’s face fell.

“Riku, can you do something for me?”

“Anything,” Riku said automatically, but his gaze flickered to Kairi—expressionless like a statue—and back.

“Can you smile at me? The way you used to smile at me when we were little. Before darkness and keyblades and sacrifices.”

An icy shiver raced down Riku’s spine. Out of all the things Sora could have asked him… He had to ask him for the one thing Riku couldn’t give to him. Not now, not like this. He could barely begin to untangle the messy skein of emotions inside of him—pain, confusion, loneliness, sadness. He closed his eyes against the memory of Sora and Kairi on the paopu tree, Sora’s determined face as he decided to go off and save her and barely offered Riku a goodbye. 

Riku wanted to be brave, he _should_ have been brave for this, for Sora, but— 

Suddenly there were tears in his eyes, and he felt his face crumple.

“Riku? Aren’t you happy for us, Riku? Our fairy tale ending?”

Riku shook his head to dislodge his thoughts, wiping angrily at his eyes with the back of his right hand.

He woke up, his pillow wet with tears.

  
  
  
  


The feelings of the nightmare lingered, his heart clenching painfully as he got dressed. He was unable to get the images of Sora and Kairi out of his head, even as he splashed water in his face and brushed his hair. It took him four tries before he got the laces of his boots properly tied, and he almost gave up to hurl them at the opposite wall.

It was just a dream. It wasn’t real. He repeated those words over and over to himself like a mantra.

But, a tiny voice whispered, Fairy Godmother had just told him yesterday that his other dream _was_ real and that his dreams were the key, so what did that mean for this one? He tried to silence the voice by pressing his palms against the sides of his head. It worked, if only for a moment.

_Pull it together. That’s what you said to Sora. Take your own advice._

With a final shake of his head, Riku stood. He had planned on skipping breakfast and making his way directly to the lab where Kairi was asleep, and where they’d put him to sleep too. He was tired; he couldn’t have gotten more than two hours of sleep, and that stupid _dream_ … Still, Riku supposed it didn’t matter that he was tired; he would be going to sleep again anyway.

He tried to slip past the kitchen, but when he did, a female voice called out his name.

Riku winced and slowly turned his head. He was greeted by bright green eyes and brown wavy hair.

“Aerith?”

“Good morning, Riku,” she said with all the cheer in the world. “Fairy Godmother told me you would need strength for the journey you’re going to make. So I’m making you breakfast, and nothing you can say will change my mind.”

Riku couldn’t help but smile. “Well, okay. I suppose it would be rude of me to refuse then.”

He moved over to the kitchen counter, intending to help, but Aerith shooed him towards the table instead. “I’ve got this. You sit there and drink your coffee.”

“You do know they’re putting me to sleep, right? I hardly need caffeine for that.”

“Oh, you know. It’ll be an artificial sleep anyway, right? At least you’ll feel more awake right _now_. There’s plenty of time for sleepiness later.”

Riku watched her crack eggs and stir them into the frying pan. She didn’t ask him any questions, and for that, Riku was grateful. She hummed and twirled the spatula around like a sceptre as she worked, and Riku’s face smoothed into a small smile. The helpless, upsetting feeling of the dream ebbed away from him in small, rippling waves.

Suddenly, he remembered Fairy Godmother’s gift from yesterday, and he reached into his pocket. The smooth, cool feeling of the stone against his fingers brought him comfort. Comfort was another feeling he hadn’t felt in a while. It was nice.

But when Aerith put a plate of scrambled eggs, sausages, and tomatoes in front of him, Riku’s appetite hadn’t returned, and he stared at the food for a long moment, slowly taking his hand back out of his pocket.

“Please eat something, Riku,” Aerith sat down across for him with her own plate and a cup of coffee. “Sora would pout at you if he were here.”

For a moment, Riku pictured the way Sora’s eyes would narrow and his lips would stick out, and that mental image made him smile.

“If not for yourself, then for Sora,” Aerith said, and that wasn’t fair, but Riku picked up his fork and knife anyway.

Strangely enough, he did feel better afterwards. 

Aerith accompanied him to the lab, even though Riku tried to tell her she didn’t have to.

“I want to, Riku. I want you to know you’re not doing this alone. We all believe in you. In _you_ , most of all.”

Riku bit his tongue. At least _someone_ believed in him, when he barely believed in himself anymore.

When the door to the lab room slid open and Aeleus escorted both of them inside, Riku carefully kept his gaze away from the chair Kairi was in—the Princess of Heart, the light, the person Sora had _died for_ —and the tubes and machines that she was hooked up to. Instead, his eyes found Mickey, who was talking to Ienzo, Even and Ansem the Wise. The moment Riku entered, everyone turned to him.

“Riku,” Mickey said gently, a smile on his face. “How are you feeling?”

That was too complicated a question to answer in a setting like this, so Riku settled for, “I’m okay.”

“Master Yen Sid informed us of everything,” Ansem the Wise said. “We’re really hopeful there’s something in your dreams that leads to Sora.”

Riku nodded, and he must have looked as dejected as he felt, because Mickey’s face fell a little.

“Remember the strength you found, Riku. Right?” And Mickey looked at him so hopefully that Riku couldn’t help but smile, even when he knew it wouldn’t reach his eyes.

“Yeah,” he forced himself to say. “Strength to protect what matters…”

He wished he felt even a tenth of the strength he’d felt that day in the Realm of Darkness. He could really use it now. Slowly, he turned his head and finally let his eyes rest on the chair in which Kairi was lying.

The heroine of the story… But…

Riku thought of Fairy Godmother, and he slipped his hand into his pocket again and thought of Sora, and he thought… It had been a _year_ since Kairi went to sleep, and they had found nothing. What if Fairy Godmother was right? Riku did know the world wasn’t black and white. Darkness wasn’t inherently evil, and maybe princesses didn’t necessarily end up with the hero.

Maybe there _was_ a place for him here, if he fought for it.

And he would fight for anything Sora was willing to offer him.

Ienzo broke the silence that had settled over the lab room. “Whenever you’re ready, Riku, you can get into the second chair. We’ll hook everything up.”

“Yeah, okay,” Riku said. He brought his free hand to his chest, over his heart. The rhythm of it was a rapid thump against his palm, and he wondered if somewhere, Sora’s heart was beating the same tune. That’s what Mickey had said at one point, even if this Mickey couldn’t remember it.

_Sometimes you care so much for somebody that other feelings disappear. And then, there’s no room for fear or doubt._

Riku had believed that once, with all his heart. He would have to believe it again.

He nodded and got into the chair. He tuned out everything that happened around him, the tubes that were put into his arms, the heart rate monitor clip on his finger, the way his breakfast swooshed uneasily around his stomach. He felt every pair of eyes in the room on him, but a calmness came over him that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He may not have known everything, and he certainly still didn’t know _why him_.

But he would give it his best shot regardless.

“Okay, I want you to count backwards from ten to one for me, Riku.”

“Ten, nine, eight—”

  
  
  
  


When Riku opened his eyes, everything was so bright he immediately pressed them shut again. The second time, he slowly opened them again to slits, and he could make out water all around him. He seemed to be standing on top of it. It rippled outwards from where he was standing, and the surface was as clear as a mirror, reflecting the clouds in the azure sky.

_The Final World._

Chirithy had told him about this place. When it became clear that Chirithy had seen Sora and Kairi in the Final World, Riku had flown over to the Land of Departure and made him tell his story three times in a row, taking notes and asking questions.

The Final World, where the edges of sleep and death touch, and one can’t help the occasional crossover...

Sleep, dreams… Sora fading away, Sora’s _death_?

“Riku.”

The soft voice came from behind him, and Riku whirled around. Kairi stood with her arms crossed in front of her, her head tilted to the side. She looked just the same as she had before she went to sleep. Not even her hair had grown longer here.

“Kairi…”

Riku didn’t know what else to say. He couldn’t remember the last conversation he’d had with Kairi that hadn’t been about Sora. It must have been after the Mark of Mastery, when Yen Sid had asked him to go and bring her to the Tower. He remembered the awkward silence in the ship back, and how both of them had realised that without Sora there, they didn’t have much to talk about. Apart from keyblades and their friendship with Sora, they didn’t really have anything in common anymore.

“I knew you’d come,” Kairi said, in that same, soft voice as before. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“You have?” Riku asked, surprised.

Kairi sighed and uncrossed her arms. She looked up at the clouds drifting by peacefully. “How long has it been in the outside world?”

“A little over a year…”

“Time has no meaning here. There’s no day and night, no need to eat or sleep. There’s…a lot of time to think, though.”

“Oh,” Riku said, shoving his hands in his pockets to hide the way they had started to tremble. His fingers once again brushed against Sora’s stone, and he gripped it like a lifeline.

Kairi extended her arm in a sweeping gesture. “And a lot of space to explore, as you can see. Sometimes I meet other…beings, I guess you can call them. They’re souls of people who have passed but cannot move or, or don’t want to move on. I talk to all of them. They’re surprisingly good at conversation.”

As if summoned, sparkles came into existence in the space between them, forming the shape of a star. It started to rotate, the sparkles swaying as if moved by some unfelt breeze.

“Hello, Sadie,” Kairi said, and her face brightened for the first time since Riku arrived. It made her look much younger.

“Sadie?” Riku asked.

“I don’t know if that’s really her name.” Kairi shrugged. “The stars don’t remember much of their past lives. Just strong feelings, or other people they were close to. They never remember their names. So I’ve given them names because it seemed stupid to refer to them as Star One or Star Two.”

“And they…linger here?” Riku asked, confused.

“Yeah. Their feelings and thoughts keep them here. Most of them died suddenly, without getting to say goodbye. A lot of them have feelings they’ve kept inside for too long, or thoughts they never shared with the person who needed to hear them. Important thoughts. When they come to terms with the thoughts and feelings that keep them here, they fade away, and then they’ll have peace.”

Kairi gave him a look he wasn’t able to decipher.

He cleared his throat. “So what happened to Sadie that made her come here?”

Kairi was silent for a long time, and Riku watched her swallow and take a few deep breaths. Then she started talking. “She used to live a fairly sheltered life as a child. She played with her friends, knights and princes. Her friends talked about going on adventures, and though part of her wanted to go, she never got the chance. In the end, all she did was wait for a prince on a white horse who never came, and by waiting, she missed out on so many things she could have done instead.”

Riku felt his face go slack as he looked at Kairi. This time, she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Riku felt his heart thump almost painfully against his ribcage.

Just then, another voice spoke up. It took Riku a moment to realise it was the _star_ who was talking. “Looking back, it wasn’t fun to wait for something that I never even knew was going to happen. While all my friends went off to live their lives. I just stayed at home, waiting.”

Riku swallowed down the surprised sound that found its way into his throat. Instead, he said, “I’m sorry. I hope you can find your peace soon.”

Kairi reached out a hand to touch the sparkling star, but her fingers brushed straight through it. Still, the star pulsated a little, as if in reaction to her touch. It must be meant as a comfort. Riku wondered how many of those stars would be here in this vast world. All of them with their own story. Maybe one of them was…

“Wait,” Riku said. “Is Sora one of these stars?”

Kairi shook her head. “I’ve looked all over, but he isn’t here.”

“Oh.” Riku wasn’t sure if that gave him hope or not. “Kairi, how did you know I’d come?”

Kairi pursed her lips and took a deep breath. When she exhaled, she crossed her arms again and looked down at her shoes. She tapped her right foot into the water, watching the ripples drift outwards.

“This world is empty, as far as I can tell. But I found… I found something.” Kairi raised her head. “Follow me.”

She said goodbye to the star and turned on her heels. Riku had no choice but to follow. He jogged to catch up with her and fell into step beside her.

He pushed down all of the questions that came to him. Is it far? Have you not seen Sora at all? Why didn’t you wake up when he wasn’t here? What are you _thinking_ , Kairi?

“Did you know, when I was training with Axel in Merlin’s enchanted forest, I used to write letters to Sora?”

Riku swallowed thickly. “I didn’t know… Sora never told me.”

“I never sent them,” Kairi said.

“Oh…”

“I had a lot of time to think here, Riku. About the lives we used to have, and the lives we have now. You and Sora… You went somewhere I couldn’t follow you. I used to resent that, and I worked so hard at my keyblade studies to catch up with you two.”

“To Sora,” Riku let slip before he could stop to think, and he mentally kicked himself.

“Yeah,” Kairi sighed wistfully. “I used to think he’d notice me if I just became strong enough.”

“What?” Riku exclaimed. “But Sora always—”

“Not anymore,” Kairi interrupted him. “Not for a long time, I think.”

“What do you mean?” 

“We drifted apart, and he took a path where I couldn’t follow. His story isn’t my story, I see that now. That star back there, Sadie… What she said really made me think.”

Something rose inside of Riku that hadn’t felt in a long time. It was _hope_ , he realised. Kairi wasn’t really spelling it out for him, and Riku didn’t want to read between the lines and assume, but… 

“Why didn’t you send the letters?”

Kairi stopped walking and turned to him. “I think even then, I realised that I’d lost him. And when we shared the paopu fruit that day on the tree… The way he looked at me… I knew I was right. He’s my friend, and I know he would do anything to protect me. But I can’t live my life waiting for something that’s not going to happen.”

“Kairi, what do you—”

“We’re here,” Kairi said. 

Riku looked around him in surprise. The place they were standing looked just like anywhere else in the Final World.

“Here?” he asked, confused.

Kairi extended her arm, and sparkles similar to those Riku had seen form a star before came into existence.

“This was my part, Riku. Did you know only Chirithy and people who fade from life can exist in this world?”

“N-no…” Riku stammered.

“I became a Chirithy when I was holding Sora’s heart together. And Chirithy are sent here until they fulfil their role.”

Riku blinked, failing to understand what she was saying.

“Behind the rift, there’s a dream.” Kairi nodded in the direction of the rift. When Riku looked closer, he saw a dark night sky behind it and a flash of neon lights. Kairi reached out her hand as if she meant to put it through, but it was blocked as if by an invisible barrier. She sighed. “I can’t enter it.”

“And I can?” Riku asked, doubt lacing his words.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Kairi shrug with one shoulder. “You’re a Dream Eater. You’re _his_ Dream Eater.”

“This is _Sora’s_ dream?”

Kairi nodded. “I tried whatever I could to enter it, but I can’t go through. My part in this is done.”

“Kairi… What are you _saying_?”

“This is not my story anymore,” Kairi said, and her voice was no longer as soft and gentle as it had been before. There was a newfound resolve in her words. “I know that now. Go now, Riku. He’s waiting for you.”

Riku turned to her. “What about you?”

Whatever had happened, or whatever would happen… None of this was Kairi’s fault. He understood why she wouldn’t open up about her feelings more, but also…

She reached up towards the hood of her dress and pulled it over her head. For the first time, Riku noticed the little ears on top of the hood. “I’ll go back and figure out where I’m meant to be. I’ll wake up when my task is done. Go now, Riku. He’s waiting for you.”

“Why me?” Riku asked, and he saw Kairi flinch, though she quickly moved her arms to her sides to mask the movement as something she’d intended to do.

“You’ll see. We all have a part to play. You and Sora… Your destinies are no longer tied to mine. I’m finding my own path.”

Riku stood silently for long moments, studying the shadows on Kairi’s face beneath her hood. She didn’t even look sad or resigned.

_The world isn’t as black and white as it seems._

Riku nodded to her. “Take care, Kairi.”

“Good luck, Riku.”

She watched as he stepped through the crack. Then for the second time that day, everything went black.


	2. careful fear and dead devotion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO much everyone for all the support and the amazing comments! I'm so blown away by the respons to this fic, THANK YOU!!!
> 
> Faux made some wonderful art of the Riku & Fairy Godmother hug from chapter 1, if you haven't seen it, you can check it out [here on Twitter](https://twitter.com/TheFauxsynder/status/1318379770586038276?s=20)!

_I have only two emotions_  
_Careful fear and dead devotion_  
_I can’t get the balance right_  
_Throw my marbles in the fight_  
Don’t Swallow the Cap - The National

Every muscle in Riku’s body protested as he got to his feet, the world spinning around him and his stomach lurching uncomfortably—the way it always did after travelling by portal. There were flashes of colour even after he closed his eyes against the vertigo overcoming him, and the air was filled with the sounds of moving tyres and honking cars. As soon as he was confident he wasn’t going to fall right back down to the ground, he lifted his head and turned it from left to right.

A small gasp escaped him.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was exactly like the dream Riku had had a hundred times before: the street lamps reflecting on the wet pavement, the bright fluorescent light of the glowing billboards, the traffic lights, the tall skyscrapers all around him. But now, it was _real_. 

It _felt_ real. 

Riku couldn’t explain it; it was the dream, only every sensation was now amplified. The colours more vivid, the sounds no longer muffled. And where Riku hadn’t been able to tell for sure when he’d had the dream before, he instantly knew now that this city was like no other place he’d ever been before. 

The one thing it did remind him a little of was the World that Never Was, with the same tall skyscrapers and the same bright lights. The World that Never was had been completely deserted though. He would never be able to forget it: fighting Roxas in rain-coated empty streets with nothing to distract him from his own thoughts and Roxas’s angry shouts.

In sharp contrast, this city was bustling with life. People rushed back and forth on the sidewalk, talking on their phones or holding umbrellas over their heads against the rainfall. No one seemed startled by the fact that a boy had just appeared out of nowhere; no one even paid him any mind.

A gentle, cool breeze ruffled his hair across his forehead, and the sensation of the drizzling rain pulled him back to himself. Riku looked at the cars and buses driving past, then down at the pavement beneath his feet, at the array of dark and light grey tiles in some random pattern he couldn’t dissect. Would it be important enough to check? He had no idea. No one had given him any instructions for what to do when he got here. He was on his own now.

_Go now, Riku. He’s waiting for you._

_This is not my story anymore._

_Is he?_ Riku wondered. _Isn’t it?_ It was so very hard to believe that after he had convinced himself for the better part of a year that the opposite was true. And maybe Kairi was wrong, who was to say? While she had appeared determined when she spoke about destinies and finding her own path, her entire demeanour had seemed different from how Riku had ever seen her before. Maybe the Final World did things to people’s thoughts, especially if they were there for too long… 

No, he couldn’t believe the words Kairi had said to him. It was… too painful to allow himself to hope once again. He’d done it before and having all of his hopes shattered and blown away by the desert winds was an experience he never wanted to repeat.

Better to lock all of those emotions of hope away, as deeply as he could.

_You and Sora… Your destinies are no longer tied to mine._

_You’re wrong, Kairi_ , he thought. _It can’t be me. He’s the hero of light, the shining star, the protagonist. You know as well as I do that there are no stories for gay boys who fall in love with the hero._

But where did that leave him?

There was another slight gust of wind, and Riku reached up to brush his already damp hair out of his eyes. Remembering what he’d done all the other times in the dream, he started walking. As he went, he brought his hand to his chest, fingers balled into a fist, and pressed it to his heart. There was a tug there, on the Dream Eater link; it was faint but unmistakable. 

He had barely gone two blocks and turned a corner when the tug turned into a lurch, so powerful he almost staggered as if physically jostled. It was like someone was pulling him forward on an invisible string for half a block, then left and into a deserted alleyway.

Once there, Riku looked around at the trash scattered across the ground and the crates towards the left. The sounds from the street behind him were muffled.

“Sora?”

There was no answer; not that Riku had _really_ expected one. Still, the tug on his Dream Eater link was unmistakable. There was something here… 

Riku took another step away from the streetlights and into the darkness and that’s when the first Nightmares appeared, a group of half a dozen Necho Cats.

“What on earth—”

Braveheart came to him here as reliably as in the real world, fully materialised in his hand before he had even finished the call. 

The Nightmares weren’t strong, hurling themselves at Riku without strategy or plan. Despite the cramped space of the alley, Riku managed to swing his blade around in quick and efficient strokes, each hit dispatching one of the creatures with a bright flash. It wasn’t long before they were all gone, but the victory brought Riku no peace of mind.

Nightmares? In this place? Well, he _was_ in a dream, so maybe it made sense…

Unbidden, a memory came to him of the last time he’d fought against Nightmares, in the last world of his and Sora’s Mark of Mastery—the World that Never Was. He remembered the thrill of summoning a combined keyblade with Sora across the boundaries of worlds and reality. Fighting side by side even though Sora was a world and a dream away. He remembered—the feelings as intense as they had been that day—how happy it made him to see Sora then, even though he was nothing more than a vision. It was still _Sora_ , helping him cut through obstacles or run down enemies.

Riku hadn’t been aware of the fact that he had become Sora’s Dream Eater until Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, had pointed it out to him. 

_You became exactly what that sigil on your back represents—a Dream Eater to protect Sora from Nightmares._

_Yes_ , Riku thought automatically. He was proud of that; he was proud of all the things he’d done for Sora, but of this one most of all. He’d never told anyone of course, but privately he really liked that his subconscious had wanted to protect Sora so badly that he had just _done_ that. Once, in a daring moment, he had asked Master Yen Sid if he knew of any other person who had ever become a Dream Eater.

He’d felt warm all over and couldn’t suppress a proud little smirk when Master Yen Sid shook his head.

Even though the battle against the Nightmares had not been strenuous, Riku still felt a little out of sorts. He couldn’t explain why, but he felt empty, drained in a way that the fight—which had been easy enough—shouldn’t have caused. He hoisted himself up on one of the crates for a break to reorient himself.

He was clearly in a dream. If Kairi had been right, it was _Sora’s_ dream. Did that mean he would find Sora somewhere here? He had the tug in his heart to guide him, and that was something—

The tug.

Riku brought his hand to his chest, suddenly realising why he felt out of sorts in the wake of the fight. The lurching, strong pull he felt there that had drawn him into the alleyway was gone now. In its wake was the faintest of tensions, like the way when he’d first noticed it, no more energetic than a faint magnet.

What did this mean? Would the pull on the Dream Eater connection lead him to Nightmares? Would defeating all the Nightmares lead him to Sora?

He didn’t have the answers, but right now the tug was the best—the only—lead he had. Tuning out as much of the world around him as he could, Riku pushed himself off of the crate and tried to focus on the call of the link.

Back on the main street, everything seemed normal. There were no Nightmares here, and no one was panicking or acting differently from what Riku would expect. No one paid him any mind either, their eyes glazing over him as if he was just another citizen making his way home, and that suited Riku just fine. The less attention he drew to himself, the better.

He started walking again, pausing on every street corner to decide which way to go. This time, it took longer before he felt it again. He was a good stretch away from the centre of the city and into one what appeared to be the beginning of one of the suburbs when the tug intensified in the same way as it had earlier. Riku followed the sensation, walking another block before he came to a park—a dark open space with the trees casting shadows across the paths and the grass.

After casting a quick glance around, satisfied no one was watching him, he jumped over the gate of the park. This time, he was expecting the Nightmares, ready with his keyblade in hand when they appeared in the middle of the park, on the grass next to the playground—a group of Pricklemanes and Woeflowers.

He evaded the first surge of them with a Sonic Dodge and launched off multiple Dark Firagas before the Nightmares had collected themselves. In his hurry though, he missed one of the Pricklemanes that circled around, and it bit his elbow before he could block, sinking sharp teeth into the bare skin there. Riku cursed, swinging his blade into the Nightmare’s side so forcefully that it was defeated immediately.

It was easy to focus after this: block-dodge-strike, breathe, repeat. One by one, the rest of the Nightmares followed suit.

With the Nightmares gone and the park back to its serene, yet slightly eerie and deserted atmosphere, Riku walked over towards the playground and sat down on one of the swings. He kicked off against the sand and let the swing sway back and forth, feeling his heart rate go back down.

Like before, the lurching sensation in his chest had quieted down after the battle, and as Riku glanced up towards the sky, looking at the full moon, he remembered—

—the promise he had made to Sora when they were little. It had been a night like this, with a full moon and a scattering of stars shining as brightly as the centre of the galaxy. There had been a meteor shower that night, the night before Kairi had arrived on the Islands. He and Sora were out on the play island way later than they should have been, having lost track of the time playfighting, when suddenly the sky lit up.

A meteor shower was unlike anything they had seen before, the brightest of white flashes in the sky, and Sora had stood as if frozen, his eyes wide and his bottom lip trembling. Riku had taken Sora’s hand when Sora started to cry, silent tears running down his cheeks, and he had looked at him with almost more devotion than his five-year-old body had been able to handle.

“If a shooting star comes this way, I will protect you, Sora.”

Riku had taken the crown necklace from around his own neck and placed it around Sora’s, and Sora had smiled at him so brightly through his tears that Riku’s heart had clenched in his chest.

That night, he’d decided he wanted to become strong, that he needed all the strength he could obtain in order to keep his promise.

Riku shut his eyes and pursed his lips in determination. He would always fulfil his promise. No matter what it took. No matter how much he had wavered, this promise had been the bright beacon he had been able to focus on. He would not abandon it, not now, not ever.

With new resolve, Riku got up from the swing and set off in search of the next Nightmares.

He lost track of the hours. He had expected dawn to come, but the city remained in darkness. The Dream Eater link guided him, and he fought parties of Nightmares, the creatures getting slightly more powerful each time. He didn’t see any sign of Sora wherever he went. Then again, Riku hadn’t expected this to be that easy.

He circled his way around the centre of the city in his search, and after the latest party of Nightmares he defeated, he looked up at the sky past the tall buildings. There were no stars here to see or comfort him—not like on the Islands or at the Tower. This city seemed to have no need for stars to wish on. There was only the moon, bright and full in the sky.

Eventually, Riku got tired, his eyes itching and his knees aching from all the dodging. It seemed weird and counterintuitive; his body was already asleep in the real world,and this was a _dream_. Why would he need to sleep here? Would he be _able_ to even sleep, or dream? A dream in a dream. That’s what Sora had experienced during the Mark of Mastery, when Master Xehanort kept pulling him into deeper layers of sleep. Would it be like that?

The rain had stopped, and Riku decided to make his way to the top of the tallest buildings to find a place to sleep. He figured it would be out of sight and out of mind of everyone and everything in this world. 

Remembering his dream skills, he half-kicked, half-jumped his way up the side of the building. When he got to the top, everything was quiet, with no sound but the wind. The honking cars and the buzz of people talking down on the streets didn’t reach this high. It was a relief to not be around people anymore, and the familiarity of the wind was strangely comforting. There was always wind back home on the Islands.

Riku curled up next to the exit to the emergency stairs, using his jacket as a makeshift blanket. Even though he’d been tired not too long before, when he rested the side of his head on his arm and closed his eyes, sleep eluded him. His elbow still hurt from the bite that hadn’t really healed yet, not even after three Cure spells, a sharp throb that he tried to ignore.

So much had happened today. His conversation with Kairi, the portal into Sora’s dream, the surges in the Dream Eater link, the Nightmares… He felt better for finally being able to _do_ something, to have a true lead. Even though there was no guarantee he was even on the right path… It was _something_ , at least.

As always, his mind slipped back to Sora. Being up here gave him the feeling—though he couldn’t explain why—that he was _closer_ to Sora somehow. Though the feeling wasn’t based on anything, he resolved to check out the rest of the rooftops tomorrow, just in case.

Then his thoughts drifted back to their Mark of Mastery exam. He had searched for Sora for so long then, too, and that journey had given him more than he had ever hoped for. World by world, he had learned more about himself and about the things that drove him. His past, and how the fact that he’d given into the darkness once kept catching up with him. His feelings of guilt and shame that he’d learned to overcome one by one.

His love for Sora, the light within him that drove him to keep going.

The fact that at some point during that journey, he truly, completely had come to terms with the fact that he was gay. He hadn’t been ready to say the words out loud to anyone yet, but the fact that he could admit it to himself without any shame was a victory nonetheless.

Being gay…

Riku remembered first hearing the word in a biology class in middle school amidst whispers and giggles. It was part of the lesson about sexuality and reproduction, and even now, Riku remembered what the textbook had read: “Some men are attracted to men, and some women are attracted to women. This is called homosexuality.”

He remembered learning the words _homosexuality_ and _heterosexuality_ and _bisexuality_. They didn’t have personal meaning when he was twelve; it was just something he had to learn to pass a test, the same way he had to learn how you could tell the age of a tree from its inner rings, and how honey bees performed a waggle dance to show each other the way to patches of flowers.

It was two years later when it hit him: what he learned in biology class that day applied to _him_.

The summer when he was fourteen, his parents had sent him to summer camp, even though Riku had begged and pleaded and yelled about not wanting to go. He had been looking forward to a summer vacation where he could do as he pleased, working on his plans for a raft that would one day get him out of here, and hanging out with Sora and Kairi. All those plans were suddenly taken away from him when he had to spend weeks sleeping in a room with twenty other boys and following a stupid schedule of games and songs and stories at a campfire. 

At least Sora went to summer camp as well. That made it _slightly_ more bearable. 

Riku had no clue why his brain decided to replay this particular memory now, on a rooftop in an unfamiliar dream city, but the mental images came fast, flooding his senses, remembering everything so vividly as if he was fourteen again, fighting off mosquitos and mouthing lyrics so he wouldn’t have to sing the stupid camp songs out loud.

Thinking back, Riku wasn’t sure if realising he was gay had been a gradual thing or not. He knew he’d never once looked at girls, hadn’t even pretended when his classmates all started to be interested in them. But he hung out with Tidus and Wakka multiple times a week, and he’d never looked at _them_ either. He looked at Sora, yes, but Sora was always there, and safe to look at because he was a little oblivious, and Riku just liked looking at Sora because it made him happy.

But one day during that summer camp, Riku realised what he was doing. All the boys were at the lake at the foot of the mountain. Some were playing volleyball on the beach; some were lying on beach towels eating snacks; some fooled around in the water, including Sora.

Riku sat on his towel a little ways away from the rest, arms wrapped around his knees, and he observed the scene in front of him with a bored look on his face, feeling very sorry for himself. What a waste of time. He didn’t understand why he needed to be sent to summer camp when he was _fourteen_ already anyway. Another item to put on the ever-growing list of reasons why he had to build a raft and get out of this place. 

Before that day, Riku had never noticed himself looking at _boys_ before, had barely even realised it was an option—despite that biology lesson over two years ago. But sitting there, on his towel, feeling lonely and resentful, he suddenly noticed he had been staring at the boys playing volleyball for a little too long. The way their shoulder blades stuck out a little. The way the sweat shone on their tanned skin. The way they moved, some of them gracefully, some of them awkwardly—especially the taller boys.

Flustered, Riku tore his gaze away, pressing his forehead against his knees. _Oh…_ Oh, that was… that was _so_ inconvenient… He was torn between excitement and embarrassment, fighting to keep the flush of realisation off his cheeks.

But he was helpless to stop this new realisation. Now that it had been let out of the box it had been carefully contained in, there was no way to put it back.

And so over the next weeks, Riku perfected his staring. He realised if he did it for about four seconds before he shifted his gaze away, it wasn’t awkward, and no one noticed. Yet while he looked at all of the boys, not one of them made him feel the way he felt when he looked at Sora. None of them shone as brightly as Sora. No matter who he looked at, his eyes always drifted back to Sora.

Then one night, with a group of boys huddled around a campfire, roasting marshmallows, one of the camp leaders told them the story of Icarus. Icarus, who had wanted to be close to the sun, a thing too bright and not meant for a mere mortal, and how he had fallen to his doom because he had gotten too greedy.

And Riku had glanced sideways to see Sora listening open-mouthed and thought, _yes, that’s me, and Sora is the sun, and I’ll be by his side forever. But I won’t do it stupidly, like Icarus._

How wrong he’d been.

There was another boy at camp, around Riku’s age, who had caught Riku looking in the end. He had cornered Riku behind the shower building one evening and crowded Riku against the wall. It would have been so easy to let the boy kiss him, just to see what it was like, but all Riku could think about was tanned skin and blue sparkling eyes and an easy laugh, so he brushed the boy aside and ran back towards the dormitory. He didn’t even remember the boy’s face now, let alone his name.

It was only ever Sora for him, anyway.

That was three years ago now, and nothing had changed.

It wasn’t long after that summer that things had gone downhill. When Riku had started feeling more and more trapped on that tiny island with nowhere to go, and nothing to do but watch Sora and Kairi build sandcastles and collect seashells—how _childish_ —while he worked on his plans for the raft or brooded. 

And somehow, what had once been life and light, turned dark and cruel.

His feelings for Sora had been twisted and used by multiple people over the course of the years, but most of all by himself. He’d lost sight of his light, his love, his devotion he’d felt when he was little. He had focused on the shadow side of his feelings—sadness, jealousy, loneliness—instead of seeing the good in them to make himself a better person. 

Riku liked to think that was different now. That his feelings for Sora made him stronger.

Once he’d felt differently, but now he never wanted these feelings to change. If he would be given the chance to wish them away, he wouldn’t. Because despite the way they hurt, his love for Sora was so bright; it was forever his beacon in a storm of darkness. It had given him so much. And he wouldn’t trade a single second of it. He’d do it all again. Apart from opening the door, maybe, but even that… He wasn’t _proud_ of it, of course. But he’d learned from it, and in the end, it had only fueled his devotion.

_I will find you, Sora… No matter what it takes._

Riku pressed his eyes shut tighter, curled up a little more, and to his surprise, he drifted into a dreamless sleep.

  
  
  
  


The days turned into weeks, but time flowed so strangely here that it might have been mere hours, or possibly months. It was always nighttime. And strangely enough, the moon was always full. If not for the fact that not a single ‘day’ was the same, Riku might have thought that he was stuck in some sort of time loop, waking up on the same day again and again.

He searched all the rooftops and mapped out all the streets. He fought Nightmares in dozens, hundreds of abandoned, remote places, and he kept following his heart like a compass. His wrist started to hurt, and his lungs burned painfully after each battle, but nothing deterred him from continuing.

He didn’t need food here, so all he did was walk and fight, search and sleep. There was no real rhyme or rhythm to it. He was long past the point in his dream where he’d normally have woken up, and he was grateful for the fact that he had _time_ now.

Time to search, but time also to think. He hadn’t realised it the first few days, chalking it up to his ever-present thoughts about Sora, but after a while, he figured it out: for some reason, every Nightmare battle brought with it a memory of Sora and himself. It was like Riku was _collecting_ these memories, reclaiming them for himself with every victory.

Some were memories that Riku remembered, others that he didn’t because either they’d been too long ago, or he hadn’t been present for it. The memories didn’t seem to be in any order, ranging from when Sora was so little he and Riku played with stuffed animals in his playpen, to the day of the final battle against Xehanort.

There were memories of before Kairi came to the Islands, of Sora and him playing in the secret cave together, or watching shoulder to shoulder as Sora’s dad made them wooden toy swords in the backyard shed. Memories of Kairi, Sora, and Riku playing in the ocean, young and carefree, and memories of working on the raft together.

Some memories were happy: the two of them walking home from school together, or playing video games on a rainy Saturday. Others clenched at Riku’s heart because they brought with them feelings of pain that he didn’t want to relive, but was still forced to. Their first fight, after which Sora hadn’t spoken to him for two full days. The memory of Kairi suggesting to Sora that she and Sora could take the raft together, just the two of them, before giggling that she was just kidding. Sora and Kairi together on the beach, Riku’s hurt, blurted out, “Aren’t you guys forgetting about me?”

All the times he and Sora had crossed paths on their respective journeys, for better or for worse. Sora’s loyal determination when he kept chasing after Riku, even when Riku shot him down again and again. Those memories hurt for different reasons than the memories of Sora and Kairi together. Riku had to swallow hard when one day, he encountered the memory of the two of them sparring on a snow-covered mountainside in the Land of Dragons, followed by a memory of Sora crying afterwards in sheer relief as Donald and Goofy tried to comfort him. He’d never realised how much he’d hurt Sora by keeping his distance then.

A particularly strong memory showed Riku the thrill and the power Sora had felt when he fought Xemnas together with Riku. And there were memories of all the worlds they’d visited during their Mark of Mastery—always together in a way, even though they were physically forced apart at the start.

Sora’s memories triggered memories of his own: the way his love for Sora slowly started to transcend all boundaries he knew, how it kept growing stronger with every passing day. The way he’d found hope in the way Sora smiled back at him, reached for him, hugged him. The way each smile, each touch, each text message from a distant world made Riku feel happier, more _seen_.

Every memory reinforced in him what he already knew in every fibre of his being: he loved Sora so much, so deeply.

Over the course of the past year and a half, the more powerful his love for Sora had become, the more he couldn’t stop it anymore from spilling through the cracks. Eventually, Mickey had seen. Fairy Godmother had definitely seen, though she had been delicate about it. Riku was fairly certain Aerith knew, too. Maybe even Kairi knew, with the things she’d said to him in the Final World, although that was a thought he brushed aside as quickly as it came.

And still, with every memory of Sora and himself that he relived, Riku was careful to keep that hope he had once felt carefully buried as deeply as he could. With crystal clarity, he remembered how, before the final events in the Keyblade Graveyard, he had felt more confident and hopeful than ever, and how that confidence and hope had been shattered. 

That was one of the most painful memories. He knew it would come one day, and it did after a battle against Nightmares under a bridge on the outskirts of the city. It crashed over him with such fierceness that it brought Riku to his knees: the memory of what happened after the final battle against Xehanort, when Riku had hoped so fiercely he and Sora would get to go home, _together_ , with everyone else.

How Sora had said, “My whole journey began the day I lost _her_.”

How he had still let Sora go to chase after Kairi—the princess of his story. Because he loved Sora, and that meant letting him go. He knew that now. He would forever be the best friend at best, and needed to learn to be content with that.

Riku had said, “Sora and Kairi will be all right as long as they’re together,” and he tried to make himself believe that even now, but in his mind, there was the ever-present shadow of darkness, the flicker of doubt. 

_Would you even be happy for them?_

He didn’t know. He doesn’t know. A hidden, selfish part of him hoped he would never have to find out.

And so he continued his search in the dream city. Despite the painful memories, not a single atom in his body thought of giving up, of turning back to the place he’d come from to see if there was a portal back home. He’d once told Terra that the strength he’d found wasn’t enough…but he would make it be enough _now_.

Sora’s memories intertwined with his own until it was hard to tell them apart, the feelings spilling over from one to the other. The force of his own emotions took Riku’s breath away at times. Yet every memory strengthened his resolve, brought back buried confidence and strength.

He tucked all the memories carefully away in his heart—the good _and_ the bad ones. All of those made up _Sora_ , and Riku would keep them safe.

  
  
  
  


Finally, the moment Riku had been hoping for came to be: his battle against the final Nightmare. He had followed the tug in his chest to yet another rooftop, calling on his keyblade and preparing himself for yet another fight. But this one was different from all the others because what waited for him on that rooftop was not just another party of Flowbermeow or Tama Sheep.

It was an Anti Black Coat. 

It looked precisely like the one he had once fought to wake Sora up from his nightmare in the Castle that Never Was, with its familiar black coat, the sleeves and coattails decorated with magenta flames. Its red eyes bored into Riku from underneath the black hood, and Riku could swear it grinned at him, though he couldn’t see its face.

They stood, just staring at each other for long moments. Riku tightened his grip on Braveheart, adopting his battle stance automatically. He had defeated all of the Nightmares he’d come across so far—he’d never once lost—and he was confident he would be able to take this one as well. But the way the Anti Black Coat stared at him was unnerving.

His own breathing was loud in his ears, while the rest of the world faded into the background. It was just him and this Nightmare, and he would fight for whatever memory it kept locked away.

The Anti Black Coat struck first. Between one blink and the next, it teleported the distance between them to strike at Riku with a melee combo. Riku barely managed to raise his keyblade in time to block, and he staggered backwards, coming dangerously close to the edge of the roof.

_Focus_ , he told himself. He struck back with a Dark Splicer, stunning the Black Coat, then warping around it. He managed to land a few hits before the Black Coat sprung into action again, teleporting around the rooftop and sending a series of projectiles in Riku’s direction. It took every ounce of concentration he had to dodge them, and then the battle turned into an endless game of cat and mouse. The Black Coat sent projectiles in Riku’s direction, and Riku continuously blocked and dodged as he managed to evade most of them. 

Eventually, the Nightmare seemed to run out of stamina, and Riku seized his chance. He cast a quick Cura spell, then started to alternate his Dodge Rolls with Firaga Bursts. 

It wasn’t quick, and Riku doubted it was the best strategy, but it was efficient and kept his energy high even as he chipped away at the Nightmare’s health. 

They were almost evenly matched, and the Black Coat fought with a determination that Riku hadn’t encountered in any of the other Nightmares so far. It fought as if it had nothing to lose. But however much determination the Black Coat had, Riku had more. The memory this Nightmare was holding must be the most powerful so far, if it was this tough of an opponent. And Riku would do anything to retrieve it.

He lost all sense of time as the battle continued. He landed hits, got in Dark Firagas when he could, then blocked or dodged the Nightmare’s attacks in return. Whenever too many of the Nightmare’s combos or projectiles hit him, he healed himself before launching into the air to send fireballs or meteors crashing down on his opponent. At times he felt his own stamina depleting, but just one thought of Sora—was he trapped in a nightmare again? Was that why Riku was fighting another Anti Black Coat?—gave him renewed strength and resolve.

Slowly, attack by attack, he saw the Black Coat’s movements become slower, his attacks coming more infrequently.

Then, at long last, Riku saw his opening, knowing it wouldn’t take much more to deal the final blow. With a final Shadowbreak attack, he ran through the Anti Black Coat, and as he turned around, he saw it fall to its knees. The Nightmare threw its head back, uttering a spine-chilling cry, before exploding into a burst of darkness.

Riku dropped to his knees as well. Braveheart disappeared and he swayed forward, his hands colliding painfully with the rough gravel, his lungs burning as he gasped in desperate gulps of air.

He’d done it. He’d won… 

He waited for the memory that would come to him, like it did after every battle, and he closed his eyes as it overtook his mind and his senses. This was another memory unfamiliar to Riku. It was Sora in a tunnel of darkness, floating, righting himself, then working to fly off towards a single spot of brightness in the distance.

“Riku!” Sora called. “Riku, answer me!”

_I’m here, Sora!_ Riku wanted to shout. _I’m here! I will find you! I will always come for you!_

Right before Sora would have touched the light, the memory faded to black. With it, the tug in Riku’s chest, the pull on the Dream Eater link, disappeared completely. The sensation of it had become so familiar to him—his only comfort during his long search here, during every battle—that without it, he felt adrift, lost at sea. His mouth went dry, and he felt his eyes start to burn as he curled his fingers against the rough stone of the rooftop.

_No_ , he thought. He sat back on his heels, pressing both of his hands to the empty feeling in his chest. _It can’t be gone. Sora…_

Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw movement on the rooftop to his right. He whipped his head around so quickly he hurt his neck, but he didn’t even notice, because _right there_ , on that rooftop, was—

“Sora…” he whispered faintly, his voice rough like sandpaper.

Sora didn’t hear him, of course. He looked to be caught in a battle, his keyblade in both hands, dodge rolling, then guarding. But…as far as Riku could see, he wasn’t fighting against _anyone_ , it was just Sora on that rooftop.

Riku struggled to his feet, rushing over towards the side of the building.

“Sora,” he tried, his voice barely louder than before. Then, because he _had_ to reach him, “Sora! _Sora_!”

The final call of his name reached him, and Sora faltered mid-strike. He turned, his eyes searching before landing on Riku, just one rooftop away.

So close, and yet so far away. Riku wouldn’t be able to jump this distance. He’d have to make his way down and then climb back up Sora’s building.

“Stay where you are, Sora! I’m coming!”

Sora didn’t say anything in reply. With horrifying realisation, it dawned on Riku that Sora didn’t give a single sign he even _recognised_ Riku. 

_Sora… What happened to you…_

Riku shook himself; he didn’t have a moment to lose. Figuring out what was going on could wait until he was by Sora’s side. Without a second thought, he jumped off the rooftop, diving headfirst towards the ground.

Then, as he fell down, a sudden ache flooded his chest as flashes of _something_ —another memory?—started to play behind his eyes.

He saw an open space, a desert full of sand and rocks underneath an orange sky. Sora on his knees, teardrops dripping on the ground. A hand curled into a fist, and then the strongest feeling of resolve he’d ever felt overtook Riku’s senses.

He saw himself walking forward, away from Sora. The calmness in his mind, no room for fear or doubt. A tide of Heartless, bigger and stronger than anything Riku had ever seen before. His left foot forward, his right arm drawn back.

Braveheart thrust forward just at the right moment.

_Pain_. _Darkness_. So much that it consumed him entirely.

Riku was still falling, but now it felt more like a dream dive than anything else. His eyes widened as he saw sparkles flicker into existence below him, like a rift opening. A portal… 

He was falling, and then he was flying, _diving._

The second he hit the portal, everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Riku goes to sleep every ‘night’ in order for Sora to ‘wake up’, i.e. be aware within his dream. It’s why neither of them can see the other, they sort of alternate within the dream, like the drops in Dream Drop Distance. (It’s also why Riku feels closer to Sora on the rooftop, because his heart can feel Sora is close, battling on a rooftop in his dream within the dream.) Defeating the last Nightmare brought Sora out of his dream inside the dream though, and that’s why he and Riku were able to see each other then. I couldn’t find a way to explain that properly in the chapter, though, so there we go :)


	3. everything led back to you

_Back to the time_  
_You were lying next to me_  
_I looked across and fell in love_  
_So I took your hand_  
_Back through lamp-lit streets and knew_  
_Everything led back to you_  
All of the Stars - Ed Sheeran

Every inch of Riku’s body felt sore and bruised. 

He could barely feel his right arm, his hip was throbbing painfully, and his magic was all but depleted. The skin of his knees and hands felt raw as they rested against the rough surface he was on, his eyes closed against the rolling waves of exhaustion and portal-induced nausea. But there was something important, something he had to—

“Oh, you made it. Took you long enough.”

It took Riku a second to realise that the voice came from outside of his head, that someone was speaking _to_ him. It was a strange perception after having been alone for so long, with nothing but thoughts and memories to occupy himself. The words entered his brain like syrup, slow and thick.

“We’ve been waiting,” the voice continued, sounding amused. “Me and—”

“Sora!”

When Riku’s eyes flew open, it took a few seconds to orient himself. He was on another rooftop, much the same as he had been on before he dived through the portal after his battle against the final Nightmare. Only this time, he wasn’t alone. Kneeling in front of him was a man in a black coat.

_More black coats?_

Riku dragged his gaze up and blinked, trying to focus on the man’s face, but it was impossible to catch a glance beneath the dark hood.

“Sora,” he gasped. “Where’s Sora?”

In lieu of replying, the man got to his feet and stepped to the side, gesturing with a flourish toward a crystal structure behind him on the rooftop. Instantly, Riku was on his feet and before he was even aware of moving, he’d stumbled over to the crystal’s side. There was no doubt about it: within the crystal, motionless, was Sora.

 _But how? I just saw him. He was moving,_ fighting.

Gingerly, Riku reached out a hand and touched the icy, glass-like structure. A million feelings tumbled over each other inside him. Relief, anger, desperation, hope, frustration, panic.

“What did you do to him?” he ground out through clenched teeth.

“Hold your horses,” the mysterious man said. “I didn’t _hurt_ him if that’s what you’re thinking. No, poor little Sora hurt himself all on his own this time. Putting him into this crystal was the only way to _save_ him. Think of it as a pod. I gather you’re familiar with memory pods?”

Riku blanched. When he spoke again, his voice came out as a mere whisper. “Yes. I am…familiar with them.”

He couldn’t look at the man as they spoke because taking his eyes off Sora was impossible. The transparent crystal made it easy to focus on Sora’s face, and Riku took in every inch of it, eyes roaming ceaselessly. Sora’s eyes were closed, his mouth downcast as if in fear.

_Sora… What happened to you…?_

The man behind him cleared his throat. “Wellllll, let’s just say this is sort of like a memory pod. When Sora arrived in this reality, he was completely out of it. He did something that no one should have done; he abused the Power of Waking to restore Kairi’s heart and body. But in doing so, unbeknownst to him, the price he had to pay for that was to give up the most precious thing in his life. So even before he faded away from your reality, all the memories related to this precious thing were cut out of his mind, so to speak. And seeing as how his memory was already weak _before_ that, having been tampered a few too many times, his entire being became unstable with so many missing links. I tried to talk to him, but it quickly became clear that only made things worse. So I crystallised him.”

“His…memories?” Riku asked, still processing all this information. 

“Ah, aren’t you the bright one? Figured it out yet?” 

“The place where I just came from, Sora’s dream… I fought Nightmares there. Hundreds of them. And every time I won, I would relive one of Sora’s memories.”

“Bingo! And now for the million-dollar question… What did all those memories have in common?”

Riku hardly dared to believe it. If what he was thinking was _true_ , then… For a second, he flicked through the memories, safe in his heart, and he automatically thought… _Kairi…_? But instantly, he knew that wasn’t true. Old, faded hopes bubbled to the surface as he smoothed his fingers gently over the cold crystal surface, his gaze fixed on Sora’s face.

“Me…”

“Ding ding ding!” the man called out. “Well done, Riku.”

“You know my name?” This time, Riku managed to tear his gaze away from Sora, if only for a second.

“Oh, yes. I’ve been following you for a long time. You and Sora. I’m a big fan.”

That raised a whole array of new questions, but Riku brushed them all aside. First things first. 

“How do I get him out of here?”

“A good question,” the man drawled. “You are familiar with restoring his memories, are you not? Surely you can do it one more time. I kinda banked my whole livelihood on it, so don’t let me down, kid. I even made sure Xehanort targeted Sora in his dream the other day, so you would become his Dream Eater. It was the least I could do after the old man messed up my plan by sending Kairi from Radiant Garden to the Destiny Islands all those years ago.”

“What?” Riku asked, searching the shadows of the man’s face and coming up with nothing. “You know Xehanort?” 

“Oh, yes. He is, or I guess I should say _was_ , a key player in my plan. But he messed everything up when he interfered with you and Sora’s destiny by sending Kairi to the Destiny Islands when she was a little girl. She should never have been there to start with. The fact that she came between you and Sora gave me a lot of headaches. Almost drove me to drink!”

“Sending Kairi to… What do you mean?”

“Ah, yes. I know it’s all a lot to take in. But the short of it is that Xehanort messed with all of your destinies with his little shell game. Seeing as how you’re here, maybe we can get this tram back on the right track. What did Kairi tell you before she sent you here?” The man tilted his head to the right as he observed Riku.

“She said…that her destiny is no longer tied to ours.”

“Ah, so she figured it out, too. Smart girl, that one. Lots of light inside her, too. Woulda made a great Dandelion!”

Riku’s head was spinning, and he looked back at the crystal, to _Sora_ , to ground himself. 

“I got Xehanort back in the end, though,” the man continued cheerfully, as if oblivious to Riku’s inner turmoil. “I planted the seeds in his brain that he should try and pull Sora into a deep sleep. I knew that by endangering Sora like that, _you_ would subconsciously find a way to protect him and become his Dream Eater.”

“But no one ever did that before…” Riku said automatically. 

“First time for everything! Are you beginning to understand it yet, Riku? It was one of my better plans, if I do say so myself. If Sora would ever be lost, I would just need to find him and put him to sleep. Your connection to him means you would be able to find him anywhere through his dreams.”

“Sora’s dreams…”

“I honestly hadn’t expected you to take this long, though. What kind of knight in keyblade armour are you anyway?”

Riku flinched. If only he hadn’t doubted himself so much. If only he had been able to hang on to those long-buried hopes… Could he have gotten here sooner? That idea stung something fierce, and he forgot to breathe for long seconds. How had he messed things up so badly?

“Anyway, you’re here now!” the man exclaimed, way too excitedly for Riku to process. “Time for the grand finale.”

“What’s your name?” Riku asked, almost choking on the air getting sucked into his lungs. He could feel his thoughts spiralling, and he desperately tried to reel them back in. There really was no time for self-pity.

“Ah. Well. You can call me the Master of Masters.”

That brought all of Riku’s thoughts to an abrupt halt. He blinked and cast another look over his shoulder, this one dubious. “I’m not calling you that. Does anyone really call you that?”

The Master of Masters laughed boisterously, two hands curled around his stomach as he almost doubled over. “I like you, Riku. You’re a funny guy.”

“Tell me how to wake Sora up.”

“Enough talking for you? That’s fine. I’ll tell you.” The Master of Masters walked forward, coming to stand just outside of Riku’s personal space. He put a hand on Sora’s crystallised form as well, close to his frozen right calf. “I promised I’d save you, Sora. That was only half of the truth. Your boyfriend’s here for the other half.”

Riku flushed at the word _boyfriend,_ debating if he should deny it out loud. But part of him secretly liked it; it made something light and shivery wiggle around in his stomach. He supposed there was no harm in _not_ denying it, for now… 

“Riku, you restored almost all of Sora’s memories by defeating the Nightmares in his dream. But there’s one more thing you need to do. Three memories he doesn’t have, but should have.”

“Which ones?” Riku asked immediately.

“Three memories to unlock Sora’s heart. The final three keys. Three times you sacrificed a part of yourself to save him, leaving a mark on your body and your heart.”

“Three…sacrifices?” Riku blinked, trying to think back to everything he’d ever done to protect Sora and keep him safe. There had been so much… 

“Your wrist. Your hip. And your life.”

“My life?” Riku asked, shocked. “I never sacrificed my—”

But he cut himself off as flashes from the final memory of Sora’s dream returned to him. The Keyblade Graveyard, with Sora on his knees. Sora’s tears. Riku’s resolve to protect him, no matter what. The way the Demon Tower had torn into him, ripping his entire being apart at the seams, enveloping him in darkness…

“I died…” Riku whispered.

“You sure did!” The Master of Masters turned to watch Riku again. “You guys cancelled a whole timeline! Your memories of it got written over as Sora rewrote the story. But it was your sacrifice that gave Sora the do-over that he needed. A sacrifice like that leaves a lasting impact. It became a…crack in the universe, as you will. You were able to dive through that crack, the last portal you came through, to arrive here. This is Shibuya, the _real_ Shibuya, a world in a completely separate reality from your own.”

As fascinating as all of that was, Riku had only one thought on his mind. “So I tell him…these three things, and he’ll wake up?”

“Yup! Take your time though. It’s been more than a year, a few more minutes won’t hurt anyone. I think.” 

The Master of Masters turned another lingering look on Sora before removing his hand from the crystal and stepping back. Riku watched him turn his back on them and move a respectable distance away, as if to give Riku space. 

Riku took a deep breath and turned back to Sora. He put his left hand up against the crystal as well, like that would somehow bring him closer to Sora. He felt a little silly, talking to Sora as if Sora was awake, but he’d done the same thing when Sora was in the memory pod, hoping his voice could reach Sora wherever he was.

“Hey, Sora…” he started, his voice a mere whisper. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you. Everyone back home is very worried about you, you know? We all miss you a lot. I miss you a lot, too… But I know why you did what you did, even if I didn’t like it. I’m glad you were able to follow your heart. I love that about you. One of the many things I…love about you.”

It was easy, baring thoughts he’d never shared with anyone to Sora like this, and now that he had started talking, the words came more and more easily.

“Even though I let you go that day, I’ve been worried about you ever since. I know I once promised I would always save you if you needed me again. But— I don’t know, somewhere along the line I came to believe it wouldn’t be me this time… I’m sorry. I should have—”

Riku broke off as he fought against the sob threatening to rise in his throat. He drew a shuddery breath and pressed his forehead to the crystal, between his palms.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m here now. There’s this guy in a black coat here, and he told me I have to tell you the three times I sacrificed a part of myself to save you. I remember the first two, but I didn’t even remember the third one until a little while ago. I never told you the other two because I didn’t want you to worry about me. But it’s not fair for me to keep these things from you. We’re best friends, and even though I’ve felt for a long time that I couldn’t tell you everything, I should have told you this. There’s more I may have to tell you, too, but well… One thing at a time, okay, Sora?”

Riku opened his eyes, peering deep into the crystal. Sora’s expression remained the same, and there was no indication he could even hear Riku. But Riku didn’t have another plan, and at least it didn’t seem to _hurt_ Sora to hear his voice. So he continued.

“While you were in the memory pod in the mansion, I worked to get your missing memories back. Roxas was a part of those memories, and I needed to bring him in to restore the part of your memories that was inside of him. I’m not proud of what I did, but… I would do it again, Sora. It’s okay if you judge me for it. I do, too. I fought Roxas in the deserted streets of the World that Never Was, but he was too strong. I bet you’re proud of that, of how strong he is. But I couldn’t lose, not to him, not then. That’s when I let the darkness in my heart free again, because that was the only way I could beat him. But not before he broke my right wrist with his keyblade. I cast a Cure spell on it afterwards, but it never set right. That’s why I wore that brace on my wrist, the one you asked about, but I refused to talk about. So I guess that’s one memory.

“The second one you were there for. It was during our fight against Xemnas. Do you remember that now? I know I collected that memory for you during my dive in your dream. Even though the fight was our toughest yet, you felt joy at fighting side by side with me. Do you remember when I pushed you out of the way of Xemnas’ lasers? I tried to dodge mid-air, but he got me anyway. I know you know I was hurt afterwards, but I never told you about the scar it left. About how my hip still hurts if I put too much weight on it for too long. It’s okay, though. I never want you to feel guilty about it. If we were in the same situation, I would do it again, without hesitation.”

Suddenly, Riku heard a creaking noise, and his eyes flew open. There was a fracture across the crystal, starting from between the fingertips of his left hand, down to the right and all the way to the base. It webbed outwards in small cracks.

“It’s working? Sora, if you can hear me, you have to fight the dream! Wake up, please!”

The crystal cracked a little further, a little deeper, and Riku took another deep breath. 

“Well, I guess there’s one sacrifice left for me to tell you about… To be fair, I didn’t even remember this one, and you left immediately after, so you’ll have to forgive me for not telling you about this one… But uh… Well, you remember the Keyblade Graveyard, right? Even though we all fought bravely, the Darkness was too strong for us. One by one, our friends were taken, until it was just you and me left. You didn’t know what to do, and you looked at me with so much sadness… But Sora, you have to know how much I believe in you. Through everything, I never stopped believing in you. So I did the one thing I knew would give you a chance, and I walked up to that Demon Tower and protected you with everything I had. And… Well, I don’t remember it clearly, but…I think I died that day. And we rewound time in the Keyblade Graveyard, and this time, we _won_. _You_ won.”

Underneath his hands, the cracks in the crystal split further and further. Riku was loath to retract his hands from it, but he figured he would have to let go if the structure was breaking apart underneath his touch.

He wasn’t a moment too soon either, as suddenly a lot of things happened in quick succession. The Master of Masters made a high-pitched satisfied sound; the crystal exploded in a million tiny pieces; Riku automatically shielded his face with both his arms; and the very air around them seemed to pulse with invisible energy.

There was the sound of shattering glass as icicles rained down from above for what felt like forever—but could only have been a few seconds. Then it stopped, the sudden silence deafening. Riku brought his hands down and, raising his head, his eyes immediately found Sora, curled onto his side in a puddle of water amidst shards of ice.

“Sora?” Riku didn’t recognise his voice, too hoarse and full of emotion, but at least Sora did. Sora’s eyes blinked open, and Riku watched them flicker around for a moment before they came to rest on him.

“Riku?”

The sound of his name from Sora’s lips was the greatest relief Riku had ever felt.

“Yes… Sora, it’s me…”

All the strength left Riku’s body, and though he wanted nothing more than to run to Sora’s side, his legs were trembling so hard that it brought him to his knees. Instead, Sora scrambled to his feet, his clothes dark and wet. He threw himself at Riku with all the zeal of a baby deer, as if he had a year worth of energy to give—and he probably did. His arms went around Riku’s neck, and he curled his entire body into Riku.

“Riku… Oh, _Riku_ …”

With the last of his energy, Riku managed to hug Sora back, arms going as tightly around Sora’s chest as they could.

Sora was wet and shivering and so _cold_ , and Riku drew him closer, trying to provide him with body warmth—but also very much because it had been too long since he had hugged Sora, and he would allow himself this. He thought he had earned this for himself, at least. 

It had been so long… 

Sora’s shivers turned into full-body shudders, and Riku could hear his heaving breaths loud as roaring thunder. He started to soothe his hands up and down Sora’s wet jacket, trying to provide comfort in whatever way he could. Sora was so _small_ in his arms, even smaller than Riku remembered. Or maybe Riku had grown while Sora hadn’t? He’d been trapped inside that crystal for so long, after all…

Riku forwent all restraint then and buried his face in Sora’s hair. He inhaled deeply, and _oh_ … At least Sora still smelt the same. It was the sweet smell of pineapple and the musky, calming smell of damp earth and waterfalls. 

“I heard your voice, Riku… I didn’t know it was you, but I still heard it, and I knew if I only listened to it, it would guide me home…”

“You’re here. You’re all right, Sora…” Riku wasn’t sure if it was Sora or himself he was convincing.

Suddenly, Sora pulled back to look at Riku, eyes wide and cheeks glistening. “Where is he?”

“Who?” Riku asked, tightening his hands in the fabric of Sora’s jacket.

“The boy I was fighting… The boy who was protecting me by making me fight. He was my rival, but also… He also wanted to _save_ me. It was…” Sora bowed his head and withdrew his arms from around Riku’s neck to press his hands against his temples. “Was it a dream? My head _hurt_ s. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore.”

“It’s okay, Sora.” Riku lifted his hands to gently cup Sora’s cheeks, thumbs swiping at the wetness on his cheeks. “I’ll tell you what’s real. I’ll tell you everything.”

Sora’s face crumpled as he struggled to breathe, gasping in shallow little gulps of air. “I fought against him, over and over. Every dream. Sometimes I won, and sometimes I lost. But I kept fighting. He kept making me fight. But then, suddenly, there was your voice, and… Riku, I don’t know what happened… I’m sorry you had to come and save me again. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.”

Riku pursed his lips and shook his head. “No, Sora. You _are_. You _are_ strong enough. You’re the bravest, strongest person I know. I believe in you _so much_ , Sora, you don’t even—” Riku paused as Sora started to cry in earnest. “I will _always_ save you. And you never have to thank me or apologise for it.”

Even in the darkness, he could see Sora’s eyes were red and glistening. Sora was stunned into silence at Riku’s words, the look of sadness replaced by one of surprise.

Riku felt his eyes start to burn at the sight. He needed Sora to understand. The depths of his devotion, the lengths he’d go to, always.

Sora hiccuped, reaching out to fist his hands in the front of Riku’s jacket, grabbing him so tightly his knuckles turned pale. Tears glistened on the dark half-moons beneath his eyes before he swayed forwards, his face buried into Riku’s chest.

“I remember, Riku.” His voice was muffled, but Riku could hear him clear as day. “I remember your _promise_.”

Riku inhaled as if someone had breathed new life into him, helpless to do anything but cradle the back of Sora’s head. “Sora… I…”

“I don’t know what happened,” Sora continued. “I think… I think I forgot everything about you? There was an ache in my heart that I couldn’t explain, and it had nothing to do with the fighting. It was like something very important had been taken away from me, and my heart kept reaching for it even though it was no longer there. Riku, I think that was _you_. What did you _do_?”

Before Riku could answer, there was a cough from behind him.

“Hello. I’m sorry to interrupt, I can see you’re having a moment. But I believe I can help fill in some of the blanks?”

Sora pulled back a little to glance over Riku’s shoulder. “Who are _you_?”

“A very good question. They call me the Master of Masters.”

Sora blinked and was silent for a second. Then he said, “I’m not calling you that. That’s _stupid_.”

At those words, Riku _laughed_ , the sound foreign to himself—when was the last time he had laughed? And he suddenly felt lighter than he had in forever, and he grinned at Sora unabashedly. “That’s what I said.”

The way Sora beamed at him then made up for an entire year of loneliness and more.

The Master of Masters cleared his throat. Even though Riku couldn’t see his face, he could picture the eye-roll beneath the man’s hood. “Kids these days… No respect, honestly.”

Sora giggled.

“The boy you were fighting…” the man continued. “Was his name Yozora?”

“Oh,” Sora said, his face falling. “Yes…”

“Yozora?” Riku asked. “Like that action figure from Toy Box you once showed me?”

The Master of Masters clasped his hands behind his back as his body swayed to the left. “Ahhhh, yes, precisely. Yozora was never real—he was only ever a figment of Sora’s mind. As I explained to Riku before, Sora’s memories were a big mess right before I crystallised him. On top of him missing his most precious person, the whole ordeal of fading away and entering a new reality must have been very traumatic. Sora’s mind tried to cope in the one way it knew how to; by taking the best substitute for Riku it could find. I do see the similarities myself… So yes, Sora remembered Yozora from Toy Box, and he created this fake memory to save what was left of his broken mind. It kept him fighting in his dreams when otherwise he might have given up.”

“He wasn’t…real?” Sora was silent for a long time, and Riku studied his face carefully. He didn’t want to interrupt Sora’s thoughts, although he was aching to reach out and touch him again.

Finally, Sora turned to look at him, and when he spoke up next, the sadness lacing his words broke Riku’s heart all over again. “How long was I gone?”

Now it was Riku’s turn to remain silent.

“How _long_ , Riku?”

Riku bowed his head, no longer able to meet Sora’s eyes as he murmured, “379 days before I left to find you. I don’t know how long it’s been now.”

“Oh…” Sora said, wet and thick. “Oh, Riku, I’m so sorry…”

Riku felt gentle fingers brush away the hair that had fallen across his forehead. Slowly, he lifted his head to meet Sora’s gaze, eyes dark and determined.

“Thank you for finding me,” Sora said.

Riku nodded. “Thank you for coming back…” _to me_. He swallowed the final two worlds. Judging by Sora’s expression, the happy smile, the wide, impossibly bright eyes, Sora heard them anyway.

“How did I get my memories of you back?”

“I found them… In your dream. I think they were always still there, in your heart. I just needed to unlock them.”

“I remember everything, Riku… Even the things I forgot before. I’m sorry I—”

“Stop saying you’re sorry,” Riku said, his throat tightening with more emotions than he knew how to handle.

“The necklace…” Sora brought a hand to where the crown pendant was resting right above his collarbones. “Summer camp that year, and the way you looked at me since. I knew something changed in you then, but I could never figure out what… But I think I know now… The sacrifice. The light in the tunnel… That was _you_ , Riku…” Sora looked down and then added, almost more to himself than to Riku, “It was never Kairi.”

Riku thought back to the Master of Masters’ words and wondered if he should tell Sora now about Kairi and her altered destiny. He decided to wait until later. This was already overwhelming enough.

“You love me,” Sora said as he looked up again, his voice a mere whisper. It was phrased part-way between a question and a statement, but Riku found he had no words to reply.

He closed his eyes and managed a brief nod.

“You _love_ me _,_ ” Sora repeated, the words laced with awe and affection, and it was more than Riku could have hoped for. It wasn’t a rejection, at least.

With that thought came such an overwhelming wave of relief, that finally, Riku couldn’t hold back his tears anymore. He let his head fall forward onto Sora’s shoulder, turning so his face was tucked neatly into Sora’s neck, and he cried.

He cried for all the nights he had spent alone in a room, turning over every single look Sora had given him. He cried for all the times he had replayed the moment when Sora and Kairi shared a paopu fruit while he watched, alone on the beach. He cried for every Nightmare he had fought, alone and scared and wondering if he was even remotely on the right path to get Sora back.

He cried until his eyes stung, and drying tears pulled on the skin of his cheeks, and a headache started to pulse painfully under his skull. And through it all, Sora held him and clung to him just as tightly as Riku clung to him.

When finally, Riku seemed to run out of tears, he was afraid to pull away. Strangely enough, crying had made him feel better, and he selfishly didn’t want this hug to end. Part of him still reasoned that if this was the only time he got to hold Sora like this, he would have to make it last. Also, he didn’t think he could look Sora in the face just yet. It was easier to talk when he didn’t have to.

Riku took a deep, shaky breath.

“I love you,” he said on the exhale, and a massive weight lifted itself off his chest as soon as he spoke those three words. His voice was hoarse from crying, from all the tears he’d kept inside for a year and fourteen days and roughly twenty hours. Plus however long he had spent in Sora’s dream. “I will _always_ save you if you need me. I’m sorry I forgot. I’m sorry I ever doubted that I could. That I would. I promised you, and I doubted.”

“You didn’t,” Sora said firmly, his faith in Riku as unwavering as ever. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Riku tightened his arms around Sora even further in reply and almost broke down into tears again. Sora was now warmer, and even though he was small, he felt so solid and real. He was _here_ , and Riku couldn’t have stopped clinging to him even if a meteor dropped from the skies right then and there.

And it should have been enough, but it wasn’t. It _wasn’t_. A year ago, he would have been content with this, with _less_ than this. But he had been so alone, and he wanted so much and so deeply. He wanted to hold Sora like this every day, he wanted to kiss him and whisper his promise into every inch of Sora’s skin.

He knew he couldn’t have that, but he _wanted_ because he was _weak_.

Instead, with trembling arms, he clung to Sora for as long as he could, for as long as Sora would let him. Finally, after an eternity, Sora pulled away.

Sora looked at him with a tearful yet happy smile, and if Riku looked anything like Sora did, both of them were an absolute mess of snot, flushed skin and watery eyes. Through all the confusion and desire, that idea still brought the faintest of smiles to Riku’s face, too.

“Well done, kiddo.” The Master of Masters clapped his hands slowly. “What a finale! No time for an encore, I’m afraid. It’s time for you to go home.”

Sora and Riku watched as the Master of Masters waved his hand, opening a sparkling crack right next to him, exactly the same as the one that Riku had passed through twice before. The crack that he, that his _sacrifice_ , had created in the universe.

“Why are you helping us?” Riku asked, because it was something he’d been wondering at the back of his mind all this time.

“There’s more to come, and I need you both to be ready. You and Sora. You’re…the beginning and the end.”

Riku blinked. “Do you always speak in riddles?”

The Master of Masters threw his head back and laughed. “Yes, actually. I like to think it’s my MO. Can’t have people knowing about the future, of course. But even _I_ don’t know everything. For example, I hadn’t banked on Sora getting stuck in this reality, which was a bit of a conundrum. You boys really made me work for it this time. But that’s okay. I like a good challenge. Keeps things interesting.”

“Then…” Sora said hesitantly, frowning a little. “I guess this is goodbye?”

The Master of Masters bowed to both of them in turn, his hands still behind his back. “Yes, it is. Goodbye, Sora. Goodbye, Riku. We will meet again.”

A second portal, this one of darkness, appeared behind him, and he took a step backwards to disappear into it.

“What a strange guy…” Sora said. Then he scrubbed at his face, rubbing the tears and the snot away, before wiping his hand on his jacket and extending it to Riku. “Let’s go?”

Riku nodded, and they pulled each other up. Side by side, they stepped through the portal. 

  
  
  
  


After having spent so much time in a dream world at night, the sudden daylight hurt, overwhelming Riku even with his eyes still closed. To distract himself, he tried to focus on his other senses. The smell of salt and paopu fruits, the sensation of warm sand beneath his hands and knees. The harsh calls of seagulls, and the gentle sounds of the waves as they rolled over the beach. Then, there came a sound he hadn’t heard in forever: Sora’s joyful laugh.

Despite the brightness, Riku forced his eyes open to slits and glanced towards his right. Sora was sprawled out on his back on the beach like a starfish, his feet half in the ocean, his eyes crinkled and his arms flailing a little.

“Are we—” Riku began.

“We’re home, Riku!” Sora exclaimed, his eyes finding Riku’s. “Come lie down with me.” 

“How are we here? I went to sleep in Radiant Garden…”

“Maybe it’s because this is the place where our connection and our memories are strongest?” Sora wagered.

“We should go back to Radiant Garden… Everyone must be worried about us…” Riku said, glancing around as he pushed himself into a seated position. It really was their play island, no doubt about it. How was this possible?

“Can we just stay here? For a little bit?” When Riku looked at Sora, he had stuck out his lower lip, and Riku could feel his feeble resolve crumbling. “I missed you so much, Riku. Even in a dream, even though I lost all my memories of you. My heart just...ached, constantly, even though I didn’t know why.”

Sora lifted his right hand from the sand, and Riku took it without thinking. He turned around to face the ocean and let himself fall backwards into the sand. Sora tightened the grip on his hand.

How often had they lain like this, side by side and hand in hand on the beach? A thousand times and more. A childhood worth of memories. Sword fights, meteor showers, collecting seashells and holding crab races, a wooden raft and childhood dreams.

And throughout all of it, there was Sora—from the beginning to the end. His entire world, his dreams, his heart.

“Sora…” Riku began, more because he just wanted to say Sora’s name than because he had something to tell him. 

“You love me,” Sora said in reply, his voice faint like the wind. 

“Ah,” Riku breathed. 

Perhaps somewhat naively, he had hoped that Sora would not bring up his tearful confession again, that they could maybe pretend that hadn’t happened and let things go back to the way they were before. This was new territory he didn’t know how to navigate. Even if Sora knew now, Riku knew it still wouldn’t _change_ anything.

He turned his face away, pressing his right cheek into the warm sand. Despite the heat, he shivered and his stomach churned anxiously.

“Why didn’t you ever say?” Sora asked softly.

Something about those words cut into his heart—the way Sora made it sound so _easy_ —and Riku blurted out a bit harshly, without thinking, “Do you _know_ what it’s like to hold _so_ much buried inside you so deeply?”

Immediately, he regretted his outburst, but any words of apology died on his tongue. He couldn’t bring himself to regret what he’d said. Maybe it was time for him to tell Sora everything, and to let Sora make his choice in the aftermath. He tried to tug his hand back while he waited for Sora’s reply, but Sora didn’t let go.

Nonetheless, Sora was silent for a long time, as Riku forced himself to breathe deeply around the ache in his chest. The only thing grounding him was the slow back and forth of Sora’s thumb over the back of his hand. Inch by inch, Riku turned his head back, his hair dragging across the beach until he could force himself to look at Sora. Sora was already watching him, a thoughtful expression on his face.

When their eyes met, Sora smiled wistfully. 

“No, I don’t know, Riku. Because you never tell me.” 

Those words stung more than Riku wanted to admit, and when he opened his mouth to reply, he found he couldn’t summon the strength. _How was I supposed to tell you? I could barely admit my feelings to myself. And whenever I thought I might work up the courage, you spent five seconds with Kairi and seemed to forget all about me_.

That last part wasn’t fair. It also wasn’t true, especially in the wake of what Riku had learned about Sora’s missing memories of him.

Still, there was a lifetime of sadness and loneliness inside of him, and Sora looked at him like he wanted to _know_. And maybe… Maybe Riku could finally be brave and _tell_ him. 

He took a deep breath and decided to begin at the beginning. 

“You know I heard you… You and Kairi, right there on the dock, before everything, when Kairi said you could take the raft together and go.” 

“Oh,” Sora said quietly, the corners of his mouth turning down. “Riku… I’m sorry, I never meant— I never said yes to that.” 

“You didn’t say no either.”

“That’s true,” Sora allowed. “I guess… I didn’t wanna hurt her...”

“Well, you hurt _me_ ,” Riku said, more forceful than he had intended. “When I was working on the raft, and you only wanted to laze on the beach with her. No matter what I did, how hard I worked, I felt like I had already lost you then. That you’d forget all about me, and wouldn’t need me anymore. And then after we left, when I found you in Traverse Town, Donald and Goofy said I couldn’t come with you, and you barely protested. It was like all of my nightmares came true.”

“Riku…” The look on Sora’s face turned to one of realisation and sadness. “I didn’t—” 

Still, Riku continued. Talking about it felt like poison being drawn out of a wound, the very act painful, but necessary. “Things got better eventually. I thought we were okay. I even thought I might have…a chance with you. But I should have known better. That night before we went off to fight Xehanort, you shared a paopu fruit with _her_ , and not with me. And then after you came out of that portal in the Graveyard, you were holding her hand, and I know I had no right to be upset, but it still broke my heart. But the worst thing was when the battle against Xehanort was barely over before you announced to everyone you would go off to _save_ her, alone, and you didn’t even say _goodbye_ to me.”

Sora’s eyes welled up with tears. Though he opened his mouth, no words came out.

“I don’t blame you for leaving, because I know you needed to follow your heart. I knew I had to let you go, and I _did_.” Riku took a deep breath. “But when you said that your journey began the day you lost Kairi, that _hurt_ , Sora! Because I was there _too_ , the day your journey began.”

“Riku…” Sora closed his eyes, his face twisting into a heartbroken grimace. “The memory of that moment is hazy, even now. But I think, since I went back in time using the Power of Waking, that by then I had already lost my memories of you…”

Any feelings of anger left Riku in the wake of Sora’s words. “Oh...”

“But that’s no excuse. I know I hurt you with the things I did.”

“It’s okay,” Riku said automatically. Now that he had spoken all those things that had weighed so heavily on his heart, he felt empty and drained, and he just wished they could just go back to lying hand in hand on the beach.

Sora shook his head. “It’s not okay. I’m sorry for all the times I hurt you, Riku.”

“It really is okay,” Riku said, because suddenly he realised he didn’t need Sora’s apology. He’d just wanted a chance to explain himself, maybe some kind of forgiveness. From himself more so than from Sora. “During the year you were gone, sometimes I was so…so _angry_ with you, and I’d—”

“Good!” Sora exclaimed, interrupting him. “That’s okay! You’re allowed to be angry if I hurt you! But from now on, I want you to _tell_ me. How else am I supposed to know?”

Riku was shocked into silence at Sora’s passionate outburst. Then, inexplicably, his mouth curved up into a soft smile. And then the smile turned into a little smirk. Sora blinked, and Riku watched as his face smoothed into a smile of his own, until they were both grinning at each other like idiots.

“Why are we smiling?” Sora said, biting his lip as more tears welled up in his eyes, spilling over onto his cheeks and into the sand where they lay.

“I don’t know,” Riku replied, reaching out to brush the tears away. “I just… I love you so much.”

Sora frantically scooted across the sand, burying himself in Riku’s embrace, and clung to him so tightly that all the wind was knocked out of Riku. 

“I belong with _you_ , Riku,” Sora mumbled into his chest, his voice wet and muffled. “When my memories of you were gone from my heart, the pain was almost unbearable. _You_ are my most precious person. It took me forever to realise, and I’m sorry about that. But it’s _you_ , it’s always been you.”

Sora pushed a little and rolled them over until Riku was lying on his back, Sora clinging to him like an octopus, no grace and all limbs and body heat and trying to bury himself _closer_. Riku could do nothing but hold him back, his arms like a vice around Sora’s lithe frame, his heart freer than it had felt in… _years_. He’d told Sora everything and Sora was still _here_. Better still, Sora was saying words in reply Riku had only ever dreamed about. 

Riku’s tears came again, fast and hot and only a little uncomfortable, and this time he didn’t even try to hold them back. He shook with the force of his sobs and repeated Sora’s name in broken syllables.

Sora’s hands found their way into his hair, soothing circles into his scalp, and Riku didn’t know it was possible to feel happiness like this. Over the sound of his own voice, he heard Sora’s harsh breathing, felt the way Sora was shaking against him, too. Sora’s breath was hot and damp against his neck, and he was _here_ , they were _together_.

This moment, only this, was everything Riku had ever dreamed of. The fact that he got to _have_ this… It was almost too much.

Riku didn’t know how long they lay there, the sun beating down on them both and the ocean waves lapping at their feet. But eventually, Sora pulled back, sitting back across Riku’s thighs and tugging Riku with him until they were both sitting up, Sora in Riku’s lap. Sora smiled and reached out to brush both his hands over Riku’s wet cheeks. Riku sniffed a few times, resisting the urge to bury his face in Sora’s shoulder again. But he realised with a jolt that it was…more _nice_ than uncomfortable to have Sora see him like this and want to comfort him. 

Without breaking eye contact, Sora removed his right hand from Riku’s face and slid it into his pocket. When he took it out again, he held it out palm up. Riku dropped his gaze and gasped when he realised what Sora was showing him. 

“You _kept_ it?”

There, in the palm of Sora’s hand, was the sea-green pretty stone he’d given Sora years ago—back during the time he was only able to convey his affection for Sora through prizes won in races. 

“Of course I kept it,” Sora said softly. “You gave it to me.”

Swallowing against the sudden tightness in his throat, Riku put a hand inside his own pocket, taking out the cerulean stone he’d received from Fairy Godmother right before he’d set out on his journey.

“Oh,” Sora said, reaching out the fingers of his left hand to brush over Riku’s stone, and Riku shivered as Sora’s fingers lingered against his palm. “I gave this to Fairy Godmother during my first journey… Did she give it to you?”

“Yeah…” Riku met Sora’s eyes again, so bright and so blue. “Is that okay?”

Sora nodded intently. “I’m really glad you have it. Looks like we both had something from each other to guide us through our journeys.”

Then he let himself fall back into Riku, his arms going around Riku’s neck automatically, his chin tucked over Riku’s shoulder as his body softened, relaxed and vulnerable. Riku kept one arm around his waist, the stone folded safely into his fist, and brought his other hand to run over the hair at the back of Sora’s head.

But it seemed like Sora wasn’t done talking, his voice shaky and gentle when he spoke up again.

“It was so awful when I couldn’t remember you. It’s like I had a photo album and someone cut your face out of all the pictures. And now the pictures are whole again, and I remember everything so vividly. The way you comforted me every time I cried, how we built blanket forts in the attic when it rained. How I looked for you everywhere after we closed the door because I refused to believe you were gone forever. How you saved me, over and over. How the older I got, the more I just wanted to…be with you _all the time_.” 

Slowly, Sora untangled himself from around Riku, and when he pulled back, his cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright and _happy_. Then, the look on his face turned shy.

“Riku… Those memories of summer camp that year… Did something happen during that time? After that summer, you changed.”

Riku nodded as his heart rate spiked. Talking about this, saying these words out loud was every bit as nerve-wracking as he had pictured it to be, but Sora deserved to know. “That was the summer I realised that…boys interested me in ways girls never did.”

He dropped his gaze, not strong enough to see the look on Sora’s face in response to his confession. Even if it couldn’t have been _that_ much of a surprise, it was still a big deal. Sora raised his left hand to Riku’s chest, resting it right over his racing heart.

“I think… I think I’m the same as you, Riku.”

“You mean…” Riku swallowed thickly, his throat painful with how dry it was. He blinked, staring at the curve of Sora’s bare elbow in his line of vision. “Gay?”

“Yeah…” Sora sighed deeply, and the sound made Riku look up through his bangs, watching as a myriad of emotions flitted across Sora’s face. “It’s just…I didn’t even understand that was an option, you know? I just thought… I looked at all these people I met in all these different worlds, and I knew they were in love, but I never _felt_ it. I never felt how they felt. And at some point when I was younger, I may have thought it was Kairi I could’ve fallen in love with someday, but the older I got, the less I _wanted_ that.”

“Oh,” Riku said, for lack of anything better to say.

Sora pulled his hand back, resting both of them in his lap. “And then I _found_ you, and we defeated Xemnas, and we spent all this time together again, and then we got to go on a journey together—well, mostly together—and I just… Riku, I thought about you _all the time_ , but I just thought… Riku’s my best friend. Of course I think about him all the time. I didn’t know there was such a thing as being in love with a boy.”

“We learned that in school,” Riku said automatically, but he immediately realised how weak that explanation was.

“That was _ages_ ago, did you think I remembered that?” Sora snorted. “I don’t know why I never met any gay people on my journeys. It might have made things click earlier.”

“I wish I _had_ told you, then.” Riku’s experience had been confusing, but at least he’d had the vocabulary and the concept of being gay to come to terms with. If Sora hadn’t had that… 

“It’s okay, Riku. I like... I like that I got to figure it out for myself.” Sora turned the stone over and over in his hands, his fingers rubbing over the smooth surface. Gently, as if he was holding the most fragile thing in the world. “But from now on, I want to know what you’re feeling. I don’t want you to bear all of these feelings alone. I want to be there for you, like all the times you’ve been there for me. Promise me.”

“Okay,” Riku said, because deep down, he wanted nothing more. “I promise.”

Sora nodded happily, slipping the stone back into his pocket. Then, blinking too fast and his voice a little too high, he asked, “Riku?”

“Yeah?”

“I really love you.”

And while Riku was beginning to finally understand that, hearing the words out loud was what made it _real_. He was the one to reach out to hug Sora this time, not knowing how else to convey the millions of feelings spinning around in his chest faster than a whirligig in a hurricane. Sora hugged him back just as tightly.

Hugging Sora was the best thing. Riku didn’t know why he ever stopped doing this. He’d been so stupid when he was fifteen. Sora sighed happily in his ear, and for long moments they just breathed together, both left to their own thoughts.

Eventually though, Riku’s thoughts drifted to the reason they were here on the play island in the first place, and he whispered, afraid to break the mood, “Do you wanna go see everyone now?”

“Only if we go together,” Sora replied, pulling back to give Riku a shy smile.

“Of course. Come on.” Riku gently shoved Sora off of him, got to his feet then reached out a hand. 

Sora grabbed it, and Riku pulled him up easily. Yet instead of keeping a respectable distance, Sora gravitated forwards into Riku’s personal space. He tipped his head up, and the shy smile was now replaced by something cheeky, something daring. Riku swallowed.

“Sora…”

“Hi,” Sora said, grinning more and more like the cat who got the cream, even Riku could tell he was still feeling shy underneath this front. Sora’s hand curled into the front of Riku’s shirt, his fingers trembling.

Riku’s eyes subconsciously dropped to Sora’s lips. The very air between them suddenly felt charged. Every nerve in his body felt on high alert, and he was hyper-aware of how _close_ Sora was, how he smelled, how his eyelashes brushed against his cheeks when he blinked. How when he breathed out, Riku could feel a warm, gentle gust of air across his chin.

“I want to—” Sora said.

“Can I—” Riku said at the same time.

They both laughed, and the tension in the air lessened a little.

“Yes,” Sora said, even though Riku had never phrased his question. “ _Yes_.”

Then Riku leaned down just as Sora pressed himself up, and their mouths came together softly, a little clumsily. Their noses bumped for a slightly uncomfortable second before Sora had the clarity of mind to tilt his head to the right, and Riku automatically reached up to keep Sora’s face there, thumbs on his cheeks and fingers curling over his neck. Both their eyes slipped closed, and Sora made a little sound between a sigh and a gasp, his hands coming to rest on Riku’s hips, grabbing and tugging him closer.

Sora’s lips were warm and soft, moving against him gently yet insistently, and the sensation was unlike anything Riku had ever felt before. He’d thought hugging Sora had been nice, that that had been everything he’d ever wanted, but _oh_ , he’d been so wrong.

And if Riku had thought he’d felt electricity in the air before, it was nothing compared to this. It was like someone had cast a Thunder spell on him, but without any damage; it just amplified everything good and nice inside of him. Everything tingled—his lips, his fingers, his hips, warm and oversensitive where Sora was touching him.

“Sora,” Riku whispered against his lips. “Oh, Sora…”

In response, Sora’s lips parted slightly, a hesitant tongue coming out to lick between Riku’s. It was gentle and slow, which was a good thing because it was all very, _very_ overwhelming. Holding Sora, tasting him, feeling him. Sora’s hair tickling Riku’s forehead, Sora’s hands rubbing circles over the fabric of his shirt. Something wiggly and welcoming warmed Riku to his core.

Sora pulled back a little, gasping in a gulp of air before kissing Riku again. Riku chuckled, and he let Sora set the pace, trading soft and quiet kisses back and forth. It was easy, kissing Sora, easy in a way that nothing between them _easy_ had been for years. It soothed every ache in Riku’s chest that he’d ever felt.

And Sora whispered his name, too, in the half-inch between their lips, quiet and reverent like a prayer.

“Riku.”

Kiss.

“Riku.”

Kiss.

“Riku.”

“Sora…” Riku gently pulled away, trying to convey with the look on his face that if it were up to him, they’d find a place in the shade and discover just how long they could kiss before their lips turned too sensitive and their lungs ran out of oxygen. But there was something they had to do first.

“No,” Sora pouted, trying to go higher on his tiptoes to kiss Riku again, but with Riku drawn up to his full height, he couldn’t reach his mouth. His pout deepened, and he huffed. “You’re mean.”

“Later,” Riku promised, because he wanted nothing more, and not giving into Sora went against everything inside of him. “But I know everyone else is waiting for us, so we should…go.”

Slowly, Sora uncurled his fingers from Riku’s shirt to cross his arms in front of his chest. He took half a step back, but the pout didn’t disappear. Then Riku grinned.

“I’ve got something else you might like.”

“Oh?” Sora asked, intrigue on his face as he was distracted from the lack of kissing.

Riku couldn’t stop the grin on his face from spreading, his eyes narrowing in amusement as he pictured Sora’s response. He focused on summoning his keyblade and, making sure Sora was watching him, threw it high into the air. When he came back down, it had the shape of a long surfboard, sleek and gleaming in silver and black.

“Riku…” Riku looked up to see Sora staring at it, his mouth open and his expression slack in awe. “Wow, Riku, you can _summon_ this? How?!”

“Terra taught me.” Riku’s voice was proud, and he couldn’t stop himself from grinning. The way Sora beamed up at him made him feel like he’d done something really special. “He gave me this, too.”

Riku pressed the pauldron that the three good fairies had sewn into the left shoulder of his jacket. There was a flash of light, and his outfit turned into a suit of keyblade armour, black and metallic light blue, with yellow plates over his knees and elbows. His helmet was underneath his right arm.

“Ohhhhhh, Riku, that’s so cool! Can you teach me too? I wanna learn too!” Sora clapped his hands and turned his body to face Riku again, his grin turning cheeky. “Hey, Riku, does this mean that you’re my knight in shining armour now?”

Riku blushed and spluttered, “What?” 

Sora’s cheeks coloured pink as well, and his eyes were sparkling sapphires in the midday summer sun. “You know, like in the stories! Are you gonna sweep me off my feet, Master Riku?” 

And Riku couldn’t help himself when he blurted out, “I _could_.”

Sora’s eyes went wide as his blush deepened, and Riku smirked through his own embarrassment. Just last week, he’d never have believed Sora would ever see him as the brave knight from their childhood stories, but seeing the way Sora looked at him now, blushing and smiling with a hand on his hip… 

Maybe they _could_ write their own story. Maybe they _should_ , for boys like him—like _them_ —in the future.

He shook his head fondly as Sora continued to stare at him. “Just get on.”

Riku stepped onto his Keyblade Glider, extending his hand to Sora, who got up in front of him.

“Don’t I need armour too?” Sora asked, although he didn’t sound worried at all.

Riku put his helmet over Sora’s head before putting up the hood of his own jacket from underneath his armour. “We’ll have to make do like this. Me in my armour and you with my helmet and your darkness-repelling clothes should be enough to protect us from the darkness in the Lanes Between. It’s only a short trip anyway. We’ll be in Radiant Garden soon enough.”

Riku hesitated for only a second before he wrapped his arms around Sora’s waist from behind, stepping closer so they were pressed together. Then he sent his glider up into the air and into the direction of Radiant Garden.

  
  
  
  


They landed into the courtyard of the castle, and Riku deactivated his pauldron once the surfboard glider had come to a standstill. When both his keyblade and his armour disappeared in a flash of light, Sora was smiling that same smile again as on the play island, equal parts bashful and coy. Riku could get very used to that smile.

But before Riku could say something in return, Donald and Goofy came rushing through the doors of the castle, all but tumbling over each other, matching looks of disbelief on their faces.

“Sora?”

“Sora!”

Just behind them came Mickey and Kairi, followed by Ienzo, Even, and Ansem the Wise at a slightly more dignified pace. Still, their faces were all variations of the same: amazement and shock.

Sora gave a happy yell and rushed forward to meet Donald and Goofy halfway, laughing and calling their names as the three of them collided into a tight group hug.

“Sora, we’re so happy to see you!” Goofy exclaimed, just as Donald messed up Sora’s hair with a stern, “Don’t _ever_ do that again!”

Riku smiled at the display, exhaling a heartfelt sigh of relief as it finally began to sink in that they made it _back_. They were _home_. 

“Riku,” Mickey said from nearby, and Riku turned and stooped to hug him, glancing over to keep half an eye on Sora—irrationally, part of him thought Sora might disappear if he didn’t look at him. But then Mickey continued talking, and Riku made himself focus on him instead. “Riku, where have you been? We were so worried!”

“Yeah, uhh,” Riku chuckled a little, running a hand through his hair as he stood back up. “I’m sorry about that. I’m still not entirely sure what happened myself.”

“Right before Kairi woke up, your body just…faded away. Kairi told us you would be okay and to have faith, so we did, but… Gee, Riku, what _happened_?”

“I went into Sora’s dream,” Riku explained. “I don’t know why I faded from this reality, I think maybe because I had to go into the reality where Sora was? I ended up in Sora’s dream, fighting all these Nightmares, and eventually, that brought me to him.”

“So you did it. You really did it,” Mickey said, a smile on his face as he turned to watch Sora letting Donald alternate between scolding him and hugging him again. “I always believed in you, Riku, even when—”

“I know,” Riku said quietly. “Even when I didn’t believe in myself… Thank you, Mickey.”

They watched as Sora finally disentangled himself from Donald and Goofy, and stood to turn towards Kairi. Kairi had hung back by Ienzo’s side, but now Sora made his way over and pulled her into a hug, too. They stood like that for a long time, and Riku could tell they were speaking softly to each other, even though he couldn’t hear the words.

But instead of like before, instead of sadness or jealousy or feeling left out, he felt…content. Relaxed. _Happy_. When he glanced to his side, Mickey was watching him, still smiling. He spread his arms in his trademark gesture. “I’m real proud of you, Riku.”

Riku nodded, his throat suddenly tight. Shyly and a little overcome, he looked down at his boots and the cobblestones of the courtyard. He always got a little flustered when people praised him. He took a few deep breaths and a few moments later, he heard rather than saw Sora and Kairi approach, Donald and Goofy not far behind.

“Welcome back, Sora!” Mickey said happily, and Riku raised his head to see Sora bent down to hug Mickey tightly.

“King Mickey! I’m so happy to see you… All of you.”

“We’ve all missed you so, so much,” Mickey said, patting Sora’s thigh.

“I know…” Sora smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh no, now, none of that.” Fairy Godmother appeared in a shower of light blue sparkles, an amused look on her face as she let her wand disappear. “You gave us quite a scare, young man, but you know what they say in fairy tales: all’s well that ends well. And now you’ll have plenty of time for your happy ever after.”

“Fairy Godmother!” Riku and Sora exclaimed at the same time. She swooped forward to engulf them both in a hug.

Riku didn’t think he’d ever hugged so many people in his life. He wasn’t sure if it was something he would get used to, but for now, he let himself relax and bask in it. When Fairy Godmother pulled back, Sora stepped closer to Riku’s side, wordlessly sliding his hand into Riku’s.

Riku almost choked on air, and he could feel himself blushing. He was a little frozen, not quick enough to avert his gaze when Kairi met his eye.

She smiled. “Hi, Riku.”

“Hi, Kairi,” Riku replied. “Glad you made it back safely.”

“You too,” Kairi said. “I told you.” The corner of her mouth curled up into the faint hint of a smirk as she dropped her gaze to Riku’s and Sora’s joined hands.

“Yeah,” Riku agreed, feeling his cheeks heat up even more. “You did.” 

He wondered if he should say more, apologise somehow, but Kairi didn’t seem like she would appreciate that, so he kept any further words to himself. There would be more time to talk later. They were all together again, and there was a lot to talk about and catch up on. For starters, there was still the story to uncover of how she had arrived on the Destiny Islands when she was young. Riku realised he’d not yet got a chance to explain this to Sora. 

Probably just as well; that was Kairi’s story to tell.

“Shall we go inside?” Ienzo said. “I’m sure you both have had a long journey. And I for one am eager to hear all about it.”

By his side, Sora nodded and squeezed Riku’s hand tightly. “Yeah. Although… You’re probably not even going to believe half of it.” 

“Oh, I don’t know about that, dear,” Fairy Godmother said with a wink. Then she met Riku’s eye and smiled. “There are stories for everyone.”

“Yeah,” Riku said softly. “Yeah, there are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they lived happily ever after :)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me about Sora and Riku on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/fortheloveinyou) :D


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